Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave and I'm conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with MarDee Hansen. MarDee is in Eugene, Oregon and I'm in Naperville, Illinois so we are conducting this interview over the telephone. Today's date is March 24, 2009. It is now 12:20 in the afternoon. MarDee thank you so much for doing this interview with me. Tell me about your quilt "Screaming Red."

MarDee Hansen (MH): Karen thanks for speaking to me. "Screaming Red" has been a pivotal turning point in my art career. I started out, I've been an artist all my life even when I was a little girl I remember the first personal thought I had remembering about myself being a small child I knew I was an artist, always known. I've done, actually I think I've done everything. Even in college I cast bronzed. I oil painted. I dabbled in clay, jewelry, everything. All the mediums except blowing glass, which I still may do some day. [laughs.] The reason or the way that I got into fiber arts and specifically art quilting is kind of a funny story. I was goateed into taking a quilt class with a friend of mine at the local fabric store. She didn't want to go by herself so she said, 'Come on, MarDee, go with me.' 'Oh, alright. Whatever.' She had a friend who was a master quilter who found out about it and said, 'No way, you guys are coming to my house. I'm going to teach you privately in my home.' Well that lasted about three weeks and the lady who had convinced me to do this disappeared and this lady, can I say her name?

KM: Sure.

MH: Bettie Rushin and I became fast friends. She became my teacher, my mentor, saved my life in a lot of ways and we are still best friends though she lives in Connecticut, we talk almost every day. That is how I started. I hit the fabric stores with her and went, 'Oh my God, this is my passion. This is what I want to do. This is it. I found my passion.'

KM: What year was that?

MH: That was probably, let's see, I believe that was '95; the later part of '95, the early part of '96. I would go to her house and every night we would do a sample block. I learned traditional quiltmaking. What our great-grandmothers did; this is how I learned. Every week I would do a block. Decided I was going to do this sampler quilt, king size, crazy huh, and quilted. [laughs.] Made my own bias binding. I mean she taught me absolute traditional way. We are both perfectionists so you know what that means. That is my background is perfect points, award winning bindings, the whole thing. I very quickly moved away from that as I'm hand quilting this enormous thing that is still on my bed today. [laughs.] Watching her do art quilts, I just fell in love with what she was doing. Though I made a couple, actually I made several bed quilts, but I very quickly moved into art quilting. The first piece I made kind of was about. This huge transition took place in my life in '97. I got divorced and met my partner that I'm with today and just moved into quilting. I produced all kinds of stuff. I went through all kinds of stages. I did a Yoni series. I did a Goddess series. All very personalized, they were all stories, expressions of things that were going on in my life. The Yoni series was about stepping into being a woman and knowing who I was and what I wanted. The Goddess was about lifting up women, being equal on the planet, that kind of thing. Ten years later, eleven, twelve years later I'm in Eugene and I've been in three or four shows since I've been here. I've only been here for three years. two years ago I lost my kids. They went to move with their dad and their father wouldn't let them come back and I was really, really angry. I didn't know what to do with that anger because I'm not an angry person. What do I do with all this? I had a very good friend who is in a small group with me. We are called Material ARTistry. I said, 'Jay, I need some red fabric. I need to get this out of my body. I need to sew and cut and rip and burn and sew. I just need to express, I need to get this out of my body.' I ended up with I don't know five or six panels. [groans.] This is all crap. [laughs.] Threw it all on the floor then Janet came over and she goes, 'No, no, it's not crap. Look at all this, it is like a road through your anger,' and as she was leaving I just said, 'Well you know tomorrow it's not going to be a road.' My partner came up and she goes, 'Oh honey, it is a Goddess. Look there she is. Add a face. Put her together she is a Goddess,' and I was 'Wow!' "Screaming Red" really yanked me out of my body, even though I was an art quilter I was still stuck in that box. I was doing everything square. I was very much in control of what I was creating. "Screaming Red" was true process art. Completely out of the box. It was absolutely pure expression of emotion. There were no expectations of a finished piece. What it was going to look like. What it was going to be. She was absolute pure expression. It was like I birthed her. There you are, that is "Screaming Red" and because of that experience of creating "Screaming Red" it's absolutely rocked my, the whole foundation of my art has shifted and I have started this whole new series. A spin off of that, outside the box doing just the pure expression and letting it happen. To a certain degree, it is almost like channeling the art rather than forcing my idea of what it is I want. That is always there too to a certain degree but really it's just giving up and letting it flow. I'm really, really excited about where this is taking me and what is going to show up for me out of this.

KM: What are your plans for this quilt?

MH: The "Screaming Red" or the next few pieces?

KM: Let's start with "Screaming Red".

MH: She is for sale but I don't know if I could give her up. [laughs.] It was such a powerful for me. She is so huge. I don't even have room in my house to hang her.

KM: I guess we should talk about it being 72 inches high and 27 inches wide.

MH: Really hard to photograph. Which in thinking about what I want to do with her and all of that, it is very much a challenge because she is so hard to photograph. How can I publish her if I can't get a good picture of her and all? I have a show coming up February, March [2010.] at "the" gallery in Eugene, the Jacobs Gallery. This whole new series is where all this is going. I think she is probably the center piece. She is the foundation for all this that I'm doing. Where is she going? I don't know. I trust that they all find homes. [laughs.] I don't have a problem letting them go. I think they are just like my children, but they have to move out so I have room for new.

KM: Are you planning a series then?

MH: Absolutely.

KM: Tell me about the series.

MH: "Screaming Red" was an expression of anger. The piece that I'm working on right now is a power piece. She is going to be a Power Goddess. I'm using power colors which are burgundies and oranges and I also have one planned that is "Grief." That is another story. That is another interview. I really believe that by drawing on the powerful emotions that I have that it really translates in my medium, in the fabric, in the colors. I can't tell you why quilting is so powerful for me but that is, that is something that happens. Gee, it is hard to put this into words, but it works, it translates for me like no other medium and it's pretty powerful. I think that when people see the pieces--I didn't have to tell anybody that "Screaming Red" was about anger or the story about my kids behind it. When it was up in the gallery and people would walk in they would go, 'Whoa.' They got it immediately. It shook them. I don't think that art needs to be taken from the negative always, that is not what I'm saying but when it comes from emotion I think it effects people and I think that as an artist that is what we want. We want to share our experiences, share our emotions and that's why I do what I do.

KM: Tell me about the techniques and materials that you used with "Screaming Red".

MH: [laughs.] I again stepped away from my norm which was one hundred percent quilting cottons, always cotton thread, always this, very hum, hum, hum [laughs.] and with "Screaming Red" I just absolutely walked away from that and almost tried to be messy and ruin my sewing machine. I used all kinds of stuff I'd never used before. I went and found just a lot of recycled stuff. I would go to Goodwill and I would see some netting and 'Oh, I will grab that.' As long as it was black, white, or red I would grab it and just throw it on a piece and just roar, roar under my sewing machine. It was the first time I really let go. If you saw some of my older quilting so precise and I just let go of that and just went crazy and just let it flow under my machine. I didn't finish, the edges are all raw, there is little pieces of thread, there is beads, there is all kinds of interesting things on the edges. She absolutely refused to go in a box to be finished on square and I went with that and, 'Okay, we will go with the rough edges,' and that was really powerful for me and I want to continue that kind of stuff.

KM: Tell me about Material ARTistry.

MH: [laughs.] This is a group of five women which I'm a member of. We [laughs.] are a very interesting group of women. We are all fiber artists though our expressions are all very, very diverse. We are so different. We have one lady who does everything by hand and her stuff, it is so amazing. We have another lady who has a Masters in Fiber Arts and has done all kinds of interesting things, clotheslines up on the hills and just pretty amazing stuff. We got together. We all live here in Eugene, Oregon. We got together and decided we wanted to do group shows, just the five of us. We've been quite successful. We've had two shows. We have, this is how I'm going to be in Jacobs [Gallery.] in February and March of 2010 is with this group. Powerful. We love each other deeply. I feel completely blessed that I'm in this group. We are absolutely a sisterhood.

KM: How often do you meet?

MH: Probably, I don't know, once a month, twice a month for coffee unless something comes up in life which always happens and then we will have an emergency meeting. 'Oh dear, you know so and so husband is in the hospital what can we do', we are absolutely like family. Not only just in our personal lives, but in our artistic lives we support each other. We lift each other up. We criticize each other. We give each other ideas. They are so inspiring for me and so. They are my artistic family and I am not alone. I think that is really important for us.

KM: Do you belong to any other art or quilt groups?

MH: I'm a PAM, member of SAQA [Studio Art Quilters Associates, Inc.], which is the professional artist member. I'm a member of the Association of the Pacific Northwest Quilters. I'm an OFA member, which is the Oregon Fiber Artists, and Material ARTistry.

KM: Why is it important to you to belong to these groups?

MH: I think that there is a certain amount of camaraderie. I also believe that there are opportunities that I can utilize being a part of, well the larger groups specifically. We as quilters, art quilters specifically, have had an interesting challenge bringing art quilting from the world of craft, which we are crafters into the world of fine art, which some of us, most of us hopefully that call ourselves art quilters are fine artists and I believe that these groups specifically like SAQA is helping to move that perception of fiber and fabric and art quilting into the world of fine art, which it should be. I think it is important to not only be a member of these groups, to support them, they exist primarily off of the membership dues, besides their fundraising, to help recognize art quilting as a fine art. We need all the help we can get, right?

KM: I agree. I do, I agree. How many hours a week do you spend quilting?

MH: It kind of goes in spurts, but I'm in my studio almost every day. When I'm in the design part of it or how do I start this project, sometimes I'm not under my sewing machine at all. Sometimes I'm resistant to go up there. You know, 'Oh my gosh, what if it doesn't happen?' If I'm in the middle of a project, my poor machine has worked so hard for me. Sometimes I'm literally under the machine for ten, eleven hours a day.

KM: Do you work on one thing at a time or do you have multiple projects going at a time?

MH: I usually always have about three projects going. [laughs.] If I get them all complete and then I'm having a hard time starting one. I realize, 'Oh well, I don't have any projects going, so okay go up there and start three or four things and see what hits your fancy. See what hooks you,' and so I will do that. I will do that. As an artist, I'm always in that situation where there isn't something that I'm working on immediately there is a certain amount of fear that wants to create whatever. Will I ever get that connection again? Will it flow again? I have to overcome that. Sometimes I just have to go upstairs, acknowledge the fear, let it, and then just set it aside and pick up some fabric and just start if I don't have a design.

KM: Are you neat or tidy?

MH: Both. [laughs.] When I'm in a project I probably have three inches of scrapes that I'm trudging through on my floor. In between the big projects, pristine. I have to clean my studio completely in between each big project. While I'm working, while I'm on that train, while I'm under that sewing machine for eight to twelve hours a day, it's all over the place. Every surface is covered with something that has to do with the project. My sewing machine and ironing board are on opposite ends of the studio so I'm up and moving all the time. In fact right now I just moved my sewing machine up on one of my work tables so I could try sewing standing up. Isn't that going to be interesting?

KM: I actually know some people who sew standing up. I find it fascinating.

MH: My shoulders are going. That is kind of scary, I'm not that old, come on I'm 48 and you think I could keep doing this for a long time, but I don't know how long I can do it so my body needs to shift, I need to try something knew. Okay, let's stand up and do this.

KM: How has that worked out for you?

MH: I will let you know when I get my second knee lift and figure that out. [laughs.]

KM: Describe your studio.

MH: When we moved to Eugene, we moved here to buy our new house, to buy our first and only house, to have neighborhood community. It's old. She was built in 1936 and upstairs in the attic were two rooms. I ripped the wall out and have a brilliant space in my home upstairs. I love it. I have windows on the west and the south so I get lots of light and what can I say about it. I love it.

KM: What all do you have in there?

MH: Let's see, I have my fabric wall, my stereo, my computer, my sewing machines. I have a whale's rib bone that I found when I was 16. I have my great-grandmother's sewing rocker and my cats. [laughs.]

KM: Whose works are you drawn to and why?

MH: That is an interesting question. Hum. Let's see, I love Aboriginal, true tribal Aboriginal work. I tend to be drawn towards the female artists. I don't know what it is about, I think they have an absolute innocence that is expressed in their art and I love that. Who else? I know that wasn't a specific artist but it is definitely a genre of its own. Specifically one person, this is going to be so cliché, but I have to say [Pablo.] Picasso in his later years. He was classically trained, I think that is important. He just had a way of letting go of what is supposed to be and I thought a lot about him when I was doing "Screaming Red." It changes though who my favorite artists are. It changes depending on where I'm at and what I'm doing. I tend to be drawn more towards specific types of art rather than one artist. I love all things that have to do with the Day of the Dead and Our Lady of Guadalupe. I draw on iconography. What is that word? I tend to draw on those icons a lot. If I had to chose one piece of art that has inspired me the most it would absolutely have to be Michelangelo's "David." I had an opportunity to see him two years ago. I could barely see him because I was crying so hard. [laughs.] I walked in and you have to find him in the gallery. I turned a corner on a hallway and there he was and he is gigantic. He is so much bigger than I imaged in my head. He is enormous and the tears just started rolling. 'Wow!' I have pictures of "David" all over my studio. I even have a little tiny miniature one. I think that we can draw from everything in our lives. We can create in any aspect of our lives if we just look hard enough.

KM: What makes a quilt artistically powerful to you?

MH: Personally for me I think true expression. I think that, you know you have a lot of quilters that will start with a pattern and they alter it a little bit, 'Oh look what I did.' I think that is cheating. I think what makes a quilt an art quilt is expression. That free flow of expression and you can't, you can take an idea from anywhere, from other pieces of art or whatever, but you have to make it yours, you have to, it has to come from you, it has to come from your heart, your soul and people say, 'Why do you do art? Why are you an artist?' 'Well you know, I have to do art, like I have to breath and eat. I have to do art. It is who I am.'

KM: I just have to ask you about "Mount Olympus." [laughs.]

MH: Okay, so let me tell you first about my Yoni series. I was not very self aware at 37 years old if you know what I mean. I started doing this whole Yoni series as I'm figuring out myself. [laughs.] I'm having fun and they are kind of interesting but really they are kind of boring and I look up and I have this calendar. It is all Our Lady of Guadalupe and I think it was April and you know April's Guadalupe looked like, well she was in a Yoni shape and no, yes, no, so I yanked her off my wall. Every single one of them, Yoni shaped. I couldn't believe it. [KM laughs.] Then I started really having fun with this.

KM: How long did the Yoni series lasted?

MH: A year and a half, two years maybe I had a friend who came in, saw it, started cracking up, laughing, absolutely cracking up and she says, 'Well, can you do penises too?' 'Sure,' so she commissioned me to make her a penis quilt instead of a Yoni quilt. When I'm working, I just for every thing that goes on in a particular piece I have ten things on the floor. I have all these scraps that didn't get in the penis quilt, so I thought I've got a penis quilt right here on the floor. I made "Mount Olympus" from the scraps that didn't get in her particular penis piece. That is how that happened. [laughs.]

KM: How does she feel about her penis quilt?

MH: She loves it.

KM: How do you use "Mount Olympus"?

MH: [laughs.] Pretty much as an entertainment piece. I think it is pretty funny.

KM: That is funny. Do you typically work in a series? You have a lot of series.

MH: In my own head, I think that the Yoni series was my only true series. The women, the Goddesses to me, each one was individual. There were a lot of commissions in there and building my portfolio, printing out the photographs I realized oh I could call this a series but no I don't usually work in series. I do group. I do.

KM: Do you call them themes?

MH: Like "Screaming Red," I'm going to have a spin off of that piece that is going to create other pieces. Those will be a series. I guess I do work in series, even though I'm not necessarily doing it intentionally. I will do a piece and then I will have other ideas that spin off from that. So yeah, I guess I do work in series. Wow, learned something about myself. [laughs.]

KM: What advice would you offer someone starting out making art quilts?

MH: Learn, give yourself good tools in your learning. I think it is really important to have fundamental abilities to spin off of. In other words, like talking about Picasso and his classical training, he could draw a human form perfectly and then he created all this weird stuff, but he had classical abilities to draw from. I think it is really important to know your materials, to know your sewing machine, to have the ability to do all the traditional stuff and then be able to let go of it all and spin off from that and really let go of your need for perfection and just let your artistic energy flow through you and let it flow through the sewing machine. Have a foundation of tradition underneath you. I think that is really important. My grandmother once said to me that, 'You can't know who you are until you know where you've come from.' We are art quilters. We are quilters. We have tradition that we stand on. I'm spinning out here, but I just think. Quilting used to be a necessity, a true American cultural thing. We made quilts to go on the beds to keep us warm, to keep the cold air out and we made quilts out of old clothes because those were the only materials that you had. Well today, we are really, really blessed to be able to stand on that tradition and make art from it.

KM: How do you want to be remembered?

MH: Someone who pushed the boundaries of what she did and loved every minute of it.

KM: What is your first quilt memory?

MH: You're going to make me cry here. This was before I was doing quilting. My mom and I went to Houston to go through my grandmother's house because she had fallen and was in the hospital and we knew she probably would never go back in her house. I remember having to go through everything. She hides everything in her books and under boxes. The deed to the house was in some book somewhere behind something, so we were having to go through everything. I found this little orange crate box and it was full of cut circles [cries.] for a yoyo club and every single piece of fabric was different. I just remember the feeling I had, I was so intrigued. The hours that woman must have spent cutting out those little things and what were they for anyway and I really wanted to take that home, but it felt like a violation to take anything. She never went back in that house. [cries.] I never got anything out of it. I remember those pieces of fabric. Every time I buy new fabric I take a little three inch square and I have a bag and I stick it in the bag and someday when I can't do what I do anymore I'm going to make a quilt, with those suckers and I'm going to put them together in honor of my grandmother. [cries.]

KM: That is wonderful. [MH cries.] I'm giving you a minute.

MH: Thank you. [laughs.] I hadn't thought about that in a long time.

KM: Did your grandmother ever get to see any of your quilts?

MH: Nope.

KM: No?

MH: No, but it is okay. We are all connected and I [cries.].

KM: I believe that too.

MH: I have to believe that. Yep.

KM: Is there any part of quiltmaking that you don't enjoy?

MH: The finish stuff after doing the binding and the label and the naming. When I'm done, I'm done which is why I'm having so much fun not putting them on these beautiful pieces. I'm not squaring them off. I'm not putting bindings on them anymore. When I'm done, I'm done. I think the finish stuff.

KM: Tell me about writing Artist Statements.

MH: Oh god, painful. [both laugh.] I can express myself really, really well through fabric and I have a really hard time doing that through words. Speaking is hard enough, writing forget it. [laughs.] That is hard. On my website, I have my little statement on there that is connected to "Screaming Red" which gave me a focus. It made me actually write the thing. [laughs.] It's hard. There is this whole discussion about having Artist Statements for pieces that are going in shows, in gallery shows and it is like, 'Well hum, do the oil painters need Artist Statements to go with their paintings?' I don't remember that, how come we need one as fiber artists? There is that whole discussion as well.

KM: Where do you fall in the discussion?

MH: I think it should be up to the artist and the piece. Does the piece require it? If it does, say something about it. For me, with "Screaming Red, I needed a little statement when she was in the gallery because she was so different from anything I'd done before, I almost needed an explanation for myself. I think as an artist we always have one piece that when we see it we go, 'Oh my God I made that. Are you sure?' "Screaming Red" is that piece for me though I didn't specifically say, 'Okay, this is about being really pissed off.' I wanted to talk about the drawing from the emotion and how that affected this piece. How that piece was birthed out of being in that state of pure emotion. Is that important on every piece? No, I don't think so. As far as an overall personal Artist Statement, I think that is really hard for most of us. [laughs.]

KM: Is there anything that you would like to share that we haven't touched upon before we conclude?

MH: Probably just that I'm incredibly excited to see where all this is going this year. This is an exciting year for me and I'm really excited about the stuff that I'm doing this year. I think that really good art comes from all of those emotions, not just joy or pain but everything between and I think that, especially the way the world is today, there are people that are--well we have the gamut of emotions out there I can tell you and I think we are going to see some pretty phenomenal art in the next few years. I also want to thank you for calling me and doing this interview.

KM: You are more than welcome.

MH: I've had a really good time.

KM: I'm so glad and you are wonderful. We are going to conclude our interview. It is now 1:05.