Yvonne: Welcome back to She Pivots. I'm Yvonn Wells.
ETS: Welcome back to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk
ETS: with women who dare to pivot out of one career
ETS: and into something new and explore how their personal lives
ETS: impacts these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Today
ETS: I had the absolute pleasure of debuting the incredible story
ETS: of Ivonn Wells for the first time ever on a podcast.
ETS: Yvon is a folk artist who creates the most striking
ETS: quilts that depict stories from the civil rights movement and
ETS: the Bible. She's been making quilts since she was in
ETS: her forties, but now at eighty five, she's finally getting
ETS: her due. Her work has been featured in the Smithsonian,
ETS: the International Quilt Museum, and at the White House, but
ETS: this late in life renaissance was never an expected pivot
ETS: for her. Yvonne spent her career as a physical education
ETS: teacher in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where she dedicated her life to
ETS: teaching and to her community. She's of the civil rights
ETS: generation and experience the tension and the difficulties of the time.
ETS: You'll hear in her interview. Her first hand experience as
ETS: one of a few black teachers to integrate one of
ETS: the high schools. As a result, her quilts are an
ETS: expression of the tension she experienced during the Civil Rights
ETS: movement and offer relief and peace through her depictions of
ETS: the Bible. Although it took her years to accept the
ETS: title of artists, there is no question of the care
ETS: and artistry in every stitch. Yvonne's success post retirement is
ETS: proof that every path, no matter how nonlinear, can lead
ETS: to something greater than you ever could have imagined. So
ETS: honored that she is here to share her story with
ETS: us today, and so excited for you to get to
ETS: know Vonn enjoy.
Yvonne: I am Yvonne Wells, and I make story quilts.
ETS: Okay, so we're gonna go. We're gonna go to LITTLELEVDD.
ETS: You are one of nine siblings, correct, which sounds like
ETS: a whole lot of fun, a whole lot of chaos.
ETS: And where do you chaos?
Yvonne: Mostly?
ETS: Where do you fall in the birth order?
Yvonne: I'm number eight. It was seven girls and two boys.
Yvonne: Seven of us were born in the thirties, two were not.
Yvonne: The oldest was born in twenties and the youngest was
Yvonne: born in forties. But the rest of us were born
Yvonne: in the thirties, So my mama had seven babies and
Yvonne: ten years.
ETS: Oh my goodness is wild. So did you end up
ETS: being the youngest? Did you end up with a lot
ETS: of responsibility at home or did your siblings mostly take
ETS: care of you? Like, how did it work in your family?
Yvonne: Well, no, I'm the one who did mostly everything. They
Yvonne: did some however, as well. But if there was something
Yvonne: that needed to be fixed or needed to be done,
Yvonne: it was always Yvonne. So I was considered a tomboy
Yvonne: and I could do all of this stuff. If something
Yvonne: needed to be hammered, moved on, the yard needed mowing,
Yvonne: I'm Yvonne, the tomboy they knew.
ETS: Did you think about being a grown up? Like, did
ETS: you ever think about what you wanted to be when
ETS: you grew up?
Yvonne: I know I didn't think. I always thought I would
Yvonne: be a grown up, but I didn't know which direction
Yvonne: I would go in. However, it was placed in our
Yvonne: mind and our souls and our bodies that each of
Yvonne: you would go to college. So we all did go
Yvonne: to Stillman College, which was in walking distance from our home.
ETS: That's quite remarkable at the time. It's remarkable under any
ETS: circumstances for all nine siblings to go to college, but
ETS: certainly in the South at the time. Yes, And did
ETS: everyone live at home? And why was that important to her?
Yvonne: Well? She always said, in order to get a better
Yvonne: way of life, in order to do well in life,
Yvonne: you're going to have to have education so that you
Yvonne: will know what to do to have a prosperous life.
Yvonne: Education was the way out, she would say. So that's
Yvonne: why it was extremely important for us to go to college.
Yvonne: Each of my aunts in office all went to college.
Yvonne: Doctor Hardy was the president of Stillman College moment tarily
Yvonne: and my mother's everybody taught school, but everybody went to college.
Yvonne: So that was I didn't see any way out. And
Yvonne: as a matter of fact, I didn't want to see
Yvonne: any other way out because it is I who would
Yvonne: always try to carry on what my mother was. Her
Yvonne: wishes were. I remember upon her die in bed and
Yvonne: I'm holding her hands. She said, Yvonne, take care of
Yvonne: your brother. Yvonne, do this, Yvonne, do that.
ETS: Yvonne did as her mother wished and attended Stillman College,
ETS: and it wasn't long before she met her husband.
Yvonne: Sure we were in school at Stilmam together and I
Yvonne: was one year ahead of him in nineteen fifty eight.
Yvonne: I think he came in nineteen fifty eight and I
Yvonne: graduated in nineteen fifty seven. I was already there when
Yvonne: he came in. And when he came in, I saw him.
Yvonne: I said, well, there's nice looking guy. But I was
Yvonne: told that he was already consumed by other women. I said, okay,
Yvonne: I just leave it alone. But as time went on,
Yvonne: that finally changed.
ETS: Was it always clear that you were going to go
ETS: into teaching and to education.
Yvonne: Not always clear. It wasn't always clear because at one
Yvonne: time I thought I wasn't going to go at all.
Yvonne: But somehow we were able to manage to get enough resources.
Yvonne: And my husband was the caregiver of the financial giver
Yvonne: at that time, so he finished up my years on
Yvonne: my final years of college. Oh, he had to stop
Yvonne: college because his finances were unable to continue his educational goal.
Yvonne: He joined the Marines, and that's how we got the
Yvonne: assistant that I needed to continue.
ETS: So when you started as a teacher, you worked as
ETS: a teacher during the height of school integration in Alabama.
Yvonne: I did.
ETS: You were one of the first teachers to integrate Tuscalousa
ETS: High School. What did you see during those years?
Yvonne: What was your role? Well, when I was informed that
Yvonne: I was going to be transferred to Tuscaloosa High School,
Yvonne: I went to the principal's office and told him, no,
Yvonne: I can't go there because I'm a little strict on
Yvonne: students as far as doing what I asked you to do.
Yvonne: But I love them all and I would buy them
Yvonne: anything and hug them and all that kind of thing.
Yvonne: But I felt that I was not the right person
Yvonne: at the right time to do this job. And he said, well,
Yvonne: let me call the superintendent. So he called and said,
Yvonne: she's not going, and they said, yes, you are going.
Yvonne: So I went on and when I got there, it
Yvonne: was quite different because two different schools, one black, one white,
Yvonne: and the integration was nil at that time. But I
Yvonne: did go and tried to make an impact on the
Yvonne: students as far as being cooperative getting along, but it
Yvonne: didn't work all the time.
ETS: The tensions of that time were immense. Yvonne described it
ETS: as quote the most tense time that I've ever experienced
ETS: between the races. You could almost cut it so much
ETS: so that tension turned to violence. During her classes, this.
Yvonne: Is one of the places I saw the most blood
Yvonne: that I had seen in my life come from a
Yvonne: live person. It appeared to me that they came to
Yvonne: the gym because that was a big area, you know,
Yvonne: lots of space fights with two by fours and whatever
Yvonne: thing they could pick up. And they were fighting, and
Yvonne: I'm trying to break them up from a district and
Yvonne: I knew not to get in between them because that
Yvonne: was dangerous, but we had to always call police in.
Yvonne: I said, well, my goodness, this is not education. This
Yvonne: is something that has got to be done. But I
Yvonne: did see a lot of a lot of that. But
Yvonne: pretty soon things started to get a little better. A
Yvonne: lot of the students moved out of the zone and
Yvonne: went to another school, and soon it basically became all
Yvonne: one color again black. But they did move to another
Yvonne: school where they had thought that they could get a
Yvonne: better education or better peace. There's nothing like having peace
Yvonne: when you're there trying to learn and then parents coming
Yvonne: up to the school all the time because of some disruption.
Yvonne: It's difficult.
ETS: But still a Vanstine true to her nature and became
ETS: a beloved teacher to countless students. Eventually they would find
ETS: her and thank her.
Yvonne: They have found me because I'm not in the community
Yvonne: all the time doing stuff, and they would come up
Yvonne: and say, aren't you miss Wells. I said yes. She
Yvonne: said you taught me in school, and you taught me
Yvonne: well That touched my heart. She said, you taught me
Yvonne: how to live and how to talk, how to my
Yvonne: parents and all of that. And I did. And I'm
Yvonne: so glad to know that I had made some impact.
Yvonne: But I hear that quite often, and it makes me
Yvonne: feel really good that my teaching was not in vain.
ETS: And despite your long career as a teacher, you pursued
ETS: many interests over the years. You became a certified notary,
ETS: a licensed funeral director, a certified emergency medical technician, and
ETS: you had to kids. Oh.
Yvonne: I think the more I did, the better I felt,
Yvonne: because each of those that you have mentioned always had
Yvonne: the intention of helping someone, helping someone who needed help.
Yvonne: I a licensed paramedic. I was a license paramedic for years,
Yvonne: and I got that because as a physical education teacher,
Yvonne: you are not always in the building. You're far away
Yvonne: from your class. Because when I would take them outside
Yvonne: to play ball, the field was way way way away
Yvonne: from a classroom. So I said, gosh, what would happened
Yvonne: if one of my kids got injured? So I said, okay, Van,
Yvonne: I'm going to take that. So it took me two
Yvonne: years to go to paramedic school and be licensed, but
Yvonne: I didn't keep it because other people, I mean, it
Yvonne: came in where that as a paramedic, I wasn't allowed
Yvonne: to do some of the things that I'm thinking that
Yvonne: my kids needed at the time. So as paramedics now,
Yvonne: you cannot do all the things that we could do
Yvonne: a long time ago. And that's why I think we
Yvonne: have paramedics now in the city, not because of me,
Yvonne: but because of the necessity to act quickly in a
Yvonne: scene that is either the last draw or someone is dying,
Yvonne: or someone is injured. But my reason was to help
Yvonne: my kids if needed. And fortunately I don't think I
Yvonne: have to use it at all there. I haven't had
Yvonne: to use it at anything as a matter of fact.
Yvonne: But you never forget some of those skills that were
Yvonne: taught to you.
ETS: Yeah, and what about a notary and a licensed funeral director. Yes,
ETS: a notary. I still am a notary. When I got
ETS: the notary and I did volunteer work at a community's
ETS: service organization. It's called temporary emergency service where we give
ETS: stuff to people who need it. And a lot of
ETS: times the students people would come in who were trying
ETS: to get their kids in school or trying to get
ETS: water turned on something, but they had to be notarized,
ETS: and I was there to assist them. However, I'm just
ETS: doing that, still doing that now here at home. But
ETS: that was the time you got a chance to see
ETS: the real community and some of the obstacles that they
ETS: go through, and you look around and say how fortunate
ETS: you are. And I was always the one who wanted
ETS: to help that person who needed my help if I
ETS: could give it to them, Yeah, that's beautiful. And I
ETS: just have to ask about the few director.
Yvonne: Yes, it was very rewarding because at funerals it's a
Yvonne: time you at your most vulnerable time. You don't know
Yvonne: how to be sad and you don't know how to
Yvonne: be happy. So I was always there to talk to
Yvonne: the family and go get the family, give them whatever
Yvonne: they want, take them, go with them to the to
Yvonne: the grave site, and just be there as a as
Yvonne: a help, but be there for consolation or for somebody's
Yvonne: head to lie down on. I just lost my sister
Yvonne: about three weeks three months ago, and I know the
Yvonne: need for a funeral director. However, I didn't only work
Yvonne: with the families. I work in the back as well,
Yvonne: with the bodies as well, but didn't do that very
Yvonne: long because I was not a trained mar tissue or
Yvonne: a trained person to work in the back. But that
Yvonne: then stopped me from doing what I needed to do
Yvonne: with the families.
ETS: I'm sure you were such a comfort to them.
Yvonne: I love it today and I've always loved it.
ETS: Yeah, so let's start talking about your quilting. You're a
ETS: self taught quilter. How did you first learn to sew?
Yvonne: I don't know if I was consider it sewing, but
Yvonne: I remember my mother would tell us to patch to
Yvonne: sew your socks up because they had holes in it.
Yvonne: I guess it was a manden. So I will put
Yvonne: two bitch stitches in it, and I call that sewing. However,
Yvonne: when it came down to making a quilt, I just
Yvonne: didn't know what to do. That was not in my
Yvonne: way of thinking. Who would have thought Yvonne would be
Yvonne: making quilt making quilts because I'm busy. I'm busy all
Yvonne: the time, as far as in this concern. It became
Yvonne: my first love. After I made my first quilt, I
Yvonne: would quilt all the time. And the reason why I
Yvonne: think it also felt so good it all we was
Yvonne: always because there was always something there in the house
Yvonne: that I could get to make a quilt. And let
Yvonne: me tell you, when I started making quilt, I never
Yvonne: thought I would sell. I never wanted to sell a quilt.
Yvonne: I was making it because of the love and to
Yvonne: see my creation down on the floor completed. It was.
Yvonne: It was my boxley. So that's how I started. Because
Yvonne: when we added on to our home, when we had fireplaces,
Yvonne: my husband went down in a county that a home
Yvonne: was given to us by my aunt, and he brought
Yvonne: all the lumber back. I think it was an Annabelle
Yvonne: home that was writing down there. But we usually would
Yvonne: is in our house right now. But the fireplaces were
Yvonne: not They were not putting out enough heat. So I said, shoot,
Yvonne: I'm going to make me something to keep my little
Yvonne: legs warm. So I looked around the curtains on the wall.
Yvonne: So I just grabbed that and reaching in the closet
Yvonne: and pulls on my husband's clothes and my clothes. The
Yvonne: children's stuff. It was there, sheets were on the bed,
Yvonne: there were all kinds of stuff that I just reached
Yvonne: up and got and made quilts. And it was the
Yvonne: best feeling that I had had in many years.
ETS: Yvonne let the joy of the craft guide her creating
ETS: quilts in a bit of an unconventional way, a way
ETS: that she calls my way.
Yvonne: I had seen quilts that were made by other people
Yvonne: and I thought they were extremely beautiful, and I still do.
Yvonne: And I actually tried to make a piece well, and
Yvonne: I did, but it was made my way, not like
Yvonne: it was like there were patterns or anything, but it
Yvonne: was made my way and I enjoyed that and I
Yvonne: liked it. Look, I wasn't told how to do it.
Yvonne: I didn't know if it worked.
ETS: That's her beloved dog, you hear in the back. He'll
ETS: make himself known in the background every now and then
ETS: throughout the episode.
Yvonne: I didn't know if it worked. I just didn't. But
Yvonne: I did continue to say I did it in my
Yvonne: way because it was me. Nobody told me anything. When
Yvonne: I did it and it got through, I said, oh gosh,
Yvonne: this looks good. And I said, okay, well I'll continue.
Yvonne: And that's how I get started. You know, I was
Yvonne: making them as fast as I could think and as
Yvonne: fast as I could stitched them, which was very fast
Yvonne: at the time. Enjoyed every minute of it.
ETS: For years, she just created and created, reveling in the
ETS: pleasure of the moment. But the quilting community wasn't as
ETS: open to her nonconformist designs.
Yvonne: When I first started going to Kentuck the festival, I
Yvonne: would go up, my son would put up this huge,
Yvonne: this huge tent, and there are people will come by
Yvonne: because I had at least eight quilt showing at one time,
Yvonne: and they go up and look at it, and it
Yvonne: was so it was to me really heartbreaking. They walk
Yvonne: up and say, oh, gosh, this is John. Look at
Yvonne: these big stitches. No. I didn't have an answer for
Yvonne: that because I didn't know anything else. My stitches are large,
Yvonne: but that was who I am. Oh this is nothing
Yvonne: but John. Why would you have all of these colors?
Yvonne: They don't match. Oh it matches to me. I tell
Yvonne: them I'm a personal color in more ways than one.
Yvonne: And they would say that all the time you need
Yvonne: to go to school is you can't show this to anybody.
Yvonne: But I was bound in the termine, and today here
Yvonne: I am.
ETS: And then at what point did you shift from simply
ETS: creating to selling your quilts?
Yvonne: Like I said before, I never thought I would sell them,
Yvonne: but the number of quilts that I was producing led
Yvonne: me to believe, now, I don't have enough room in
Yvonne: the house to put these. So years passed by and
Yvonne: I met a man who had a gallery downtown and
Yvonne: who was interested in quilts, and especially the black person's quilts.
Yvonne: I said, oh, well, okay, so he came over. He
Yvonne: and his wife came over and looked at what I
Yvonne: was seeing, and he just fell in love with what
Yvonne: I was doing and told me to show it to
Yvonne: the public and you may get something. I said, no,
Yvonne: I will not do that because I don't want anybody
Yvonne: to see this junk. And that's what it was called
Yvonne: for several years, junk, but usually it was I was
Yvonne: told to go to school to learn how to quilt,
Yvonne: and I wouldn't show this stuff to anything to anybody.
Yvonne: So all those kinds of things, it's made me to
Yvonne: want to make and to work harder at what I
Yvonne: was doing. But I never changed my way and my
Yvonne: vision of a quilt.
ETS: When you say your way and your vision. Are you
ETS: talking about how they're very they're pictorial, they depict scenes.
ETS: Was having them be visual and pictorial always part of
ETS: the vision for you of the quilt, Like, did they
ETS: ever evolve in that sense?
Yvonne: Well, there was an evolution early on after I made
Yvonne: a quilt called a Mothership. It was from a pattern
Yvonne: and I showed it to Robert Caringo. I've heard the
Yvonne: name before, and he said, he thinks this is a story.
Yvonne: I said, well, how do you think it's a story?
Yvonne: He said, wellther yoused to call it mother ship has
Yvonne: the babies and dad's a mother and she's calling them on.
Yvonne: I said, oh, I didn't know that. So after being
Yvonne: told that, I said, shoot, I think I can make
Yvonne: a story because I see so much. I see and
Yvonne: I feel so much. And then I created my first
Yvonne: story quilt after doing all the patterns, was a crucifixion.
Yvonne: And because I worked on the floor, there was several
Yvonne: quilts on the floor at one time. At one time,
Yvonne: I was doing five at a time because I would
Yvonne: stay up all night because it felt good. It felt good,
Yvonne: and I wanted to I didn't want to stop, even
Yvonne: though it's three o'clock in the morning. I don't want
Yvonne: to stop because I may miss something, and I don't
Yvonne: want to miss anything. But I made the Crucifixion, and
Yvonne: after making that, making that, I said, well, I think
Yvonne: I could do them more. And from there I proceeded
Yvonne: to where I am now stories.
ETS: Out of them basically, and I think that was probably
ETS: the thing that attracted me most about her work is
ETS: the storytelling or the narratives that are in each.
Speaker 3: Of the quilt. So I'm here at the International Quilt
Speaker 3: Museum back in the archives today. There are over ten
Speaker 3: thousand quilts, textiles, and quilted objects here in the collection,
Speaker 3: and I'm standing in front of my one of my
Speaker 3: very favorite quilts. This is a gorgeous quilt made by
Speaker 3: Yvonne Wells in nineteen eighty seven, and it's called Going Home.
ETS: So when you're creating your quilts and coming up with
ETS: the story, which comes first? Do you see the fabrics
ETS: and are you inspired? Does the story become inspired by
ETS: the fabric or do you think of the story that
ETS: you want to tell and you go out and find
ETS: the materials.
Yvonne: I think I do all of that first, however, or
Yvonne: I must see it. I got to see it first
Yvonne: in my mind. Then I have to think about it.
Yvonne: Then I have to feel it in my heart if
Yvonne: this is the way that I want to go with
Yvonne: the story, or am I to look at something else.
Yvonne: Let me say this, I don't jump right into the
Yvonne: story making the quilt until I have almost completely finished
Yvonne: the quilts itself, because as I make the quilts sometimes
Yvonne: the story change.
ETS: If you have a lot of religious themes and civil
ETS: rights themes, I do. Are there particular stories you're trying
ETS: to tell through the civil rights stories? Are you recreating
ETS: things that you've seen or more things that you envision?
Yvonne: It could be both. I could be all of those.
Yvonne: It was my intention and it is still today that
Yvonne: I would put down in a quilt history. Because I
Yvonne: was during this of rights era, that's my era, and
Yvonne: so much was going on. I said, gosh, let me
Yvonne: just see if I could put some of this down
Yvonne: in my way. But like I said, as a teacher,
Yvonne: I always wanted to have something that a child or
Yvonne: somebody else can look at it and say, oh, is
Yvonne: this the way it was? Or I'll go worried about it.
Yvonne: As I said, the viewer and the artists are two
Yvonne: different people. The artist can see anything, but as a viewer,
Yvonne: you may not even get it unless I'm there to
Yvonne: tell you.
ETS: Evonne's quilts have traveled the world, from the Smithsonian to
ETS: France to Japan. There's no question her work has achieved
ETS: her dream and intention of educating viewers through her depictions.
ETS: After the break, we dived into a Vaughn's mindset. She
ETS: expanded her work as a folk quilt artist, all while
ETS: teaching full time and raising her family. Did you think
ETS: about becoming an artist full time while you were still
ETS: working as a teacher, because you stayed doing both for
ETS: a long time.
Yvonne: I did. I never thought I was an artist. I
Yvonne: never to well to this day they say I'm beginning
Yvonne: to to envelop that title. But I never thought I
Yvonne: was an artist. I just thought I was somebody who
Yvonne: made quilts. But I'm like I said, I begin to
Yvonne: take it in now because this has been so much
Yvonne: attention given to my staff, and I'm pleased to deafoot
Yvonne: title artist is way way out of my thank you.
ETS: You've noted that you had a lot of anxiety at
ETS: first around showing your quilts to the world. How did
ETS: you overcome that?
Yvonne: Well, I saw some acceptance because at first, like I
Yvonne: tell you, it was criticized and it didn't look like
Yvonne: anything any quotures had ever made. I became more embolded
Yvonne: because there were people saying, Oh, this is good, this
Yvonne: looks good, it tells a great story. And then I
Yvonne: had the determination not to stop. I was bound and determined.
Yvonne: I was determined that I was going to keep this
Yvonne: going as long as I could, whether they liked it
Yvonne: or not. I did. I did. I got to that point.
Yvonne: I did.
ETS: I love that. I think some people get discouraged if
ETS: the thing they want doesn't show immediate returns for them
ETS: or recognition right away. How long do you think it
ETS: was between when you started quilting and gaining recognition that
ETS: you felt was meaningful.
Yvonne: When I first got my first award at Kentuck, I
Yvonne: was knocked off my feet because my stuff looked funny.
Yvonne: I was hanging them on barbed wire, tree limbs, chairs
Yvonne: and everything. But at the end of the day, I
Yvonne: wanted best to show. And after that I said, well,
Yvonne: wait a minute, there is something going on that they
Yvonne: saw that I wasn't seeing. And from that point on,
Yvonne: I think I begun to see that I did have
Yvonne: something a little bit different, and it was feeling good.
Yvonne: To me. So that's how it just kept moving and
Yvonne: moving and moving it. I'm not a person who sits
Yvonne: phil and moving.
ETS: She did. Even when she retired from teaching, Avon barely
ETS: slowed down.
Yvonne: Now it's supposed to say I didn't see any change
Yvonne: in what I was doing when I was teaching, as
Yvonne: when I retired. That was no change other than I
Yvonne: was home all the time after retiring most of the time.
Yvonne: But I did stuff like mold of yards and cut
Yvonne: the flowers into trees and all that kind of stuff,
Yvonne: and fix the houses of things. I was doing something
Yvonne: all the time, but still creating at the same time
Yvonne: that I was when I was teaching. I never thought
Yvonne: I would come home and sit and rock, even though
Yvonne: I was quilt to know. Not only do I quilt,
Yvonne: I'm a community person. I'm involved in just about everything.
Yvonne: There are people out there in the world who needs me,
Yvonne: I think, and I want to be able to assist
Yvonne: them the best way I can. If it's not financial,
Yvonne: I want them to show I want to show them
Yvonne: that this is the way it can be done. So no,
Yvonne: I'm not a rocker.
ETS: You know this moment is amazing. You are an artist
ETS: or having a real renaissance in the art work. Why
ETS: do you think it's all happening right now?
Yvonne: I don't know why it's all happening at one time,
Yvonne: which is almost I thought I wasn't going to make
Yvonne: it through. But things are tapering you off some But
Yvonne: I have other things going on, but not as big
Yvonne: unless somebody says they want me to do a bigger show.
Yvonne: Things are beginning to taper down as far as big stuff.
Yvonne: But why I'm out of here? Why am i here?
Yvonne: I don't know. But apparently others think it's good, and
Yvonne: the people in the right places think it's worth that.
Yvonne: So I'm glad to know that other people can speak
Yvonne: about another artist in the tone that they are speaking
Yvonne: about me.
ETS: Your quilts have handed up in some remarkable places. Can
ETS: you tell us where they bended up?
Yvonne: Well, I can't tell you every place because I forget
Yvonne: where they have been. I was chosen to go to
Yvonne: France as one of the thirteen Alabama artists to show
Yvonne: our work. My work it's been there. I've been to
Yvonne: Italy right now. In Paris, I have an exhibition going
Yvonne: on in the Hyatt Museum, and I have one piece
Yvonne: in the Quilt Museum of African American culture. You know,
Yvonne: at the time, someone call and say, I saw your
Yvonne: work this place, I saw you work that place. I'm
Yvonne: glad that that is been shown in different areas of
Yvonne: the world so that they can see what I was
Yvonne: trying to do or I am trying to.
ETS: Do still doing it. You even created an ornament for
ETS: the White House.
Yvonne: I cheer that. Oh, you talking about big stuff to me.
Yvonne: I was able to call up there and talk to
Yvonne: somebody in the Blue Room or the White House. You
Yvonne: don't know how that beat that was. That was in
Yvonne: nineteen ninety three, I believe, and they were looking for
Yvonne: and are artist in every state to make an ornament
Yvonne: for the Christmas tree in the Blue Room. I was
Yvonne: recommended by Robert Carclow to do this, and I said, no,
Yvonne: you kidding me. So I was accepted and I did
Yvonne: what I do. I made a panel with the Alabama
Yvonne: flag on it, with Alabama shape and all of its
Yvonne: resources that we have in Alabama. And I also made
Yvonne: an ornament that says hope because Bill Clinton would always
Yvonne: talk about hope. So I made a white ornament with
Yvonne: the word hope on and they put it on a tree.
Yvonne: They were inviting the folk artists to show their work,
Yvonne: and I was one of them.
ETS: Yvonne's success after success post retirement is a testament that
ETS: life is never linear or as you may expect. And
ETS: she's not done yet. I vonn has more in store
ETS: for us when we return. Stay tuned and tell us
ETS: about the inspiration for writing your book.
Yvonne: Oh boy, oh boy. It has been talked about for
Yvonne: many years. I don't know if you know Stacey Morgan,
Yvonne: doctor Morgan, but he's a professor at the University of
Yvonne: Alabama here and we have been friends for many years.
Yvonne: I would go to his class at the university and
Yvonne: talk to his class about my work because he was
Yvonne: one of those people who were very much supportive. So
Yvonne: he wanted me to talk to his class, and I
Yvonne: was thinking. I said, well, now, if that comes a time,
Yvonne: this needs to be put down so that people can
Yvonne: see what I have been doing for these many years.
Yvonne: And it's also thinks something that my kids or my
Yvonne: family could be proud of. I after my own and
Yvonne: said this was my mama. So that was that was
Yvonne: part of the inspiration. But I did not realize how
Yvonne: much work we had to go into writing a book.
Yvonne: But the reason that it was. It was long, however,
Yvonne: but each day that Stacy would come it got better
Yvonne: and better and better. It felt so good. Not only
Yvonne: were we talking and measuring and pulling out stuff, but
Yvonne: he made me feel like this is it. We should
Yvonne: do this. So we did. After a little over five years,
Yvonne: it finally came out. And I'm thrilled you alluded to
Yvonne: your legacy. What do you want your legacy to be? Well,
Yvonne: sometimes it changes. If it could be a long, long,
Yvonne: long legacy, I could say a lot of things I
Yvonne: wanted to be said that she never turned around because
Yvonne: of the negative comments that were made about her work.
Yvonne: She never listened and stopped because people were to say
Yvonne: this is nothing. I want them to say. No matter
Yvonne: whatever she started with, she completed it and excel at it.
Yvonne: As far as Quilton misconcern, I wanted you to be
Yvonne: a teaching too, for anyone who's trying to teach about
Yvonne: history or teach about any kind of lesson from the stories.
Yvonne: I wanted to be a teaching too. Plus I wanted
Yvonne: to be a life on the hill so those who
Yvonne: can see it would learn from it.
ETS: I like to think about what different phases look like
ETS: and what success means like how we define success for
ETS: ourselves through our different phases of our lives. How do
ETS: you think you define success for yourself right now?
Yvonne: The fact that from the when I first started, there
Yvonne: was a bud I moved on. The butt began to
Yvonne: open up. As time went on, it got large and larger,
Yvonne: and right now I'm at the apex of this folk
Yvonne: art quilt. So I think that's how it got to
Yvonne: be this point. And what is success? This is to
Yvonne: me a success And the fact that my children are
Yvonne: seeing the fruits of my labor means very, very lock
Yvonne: to me. So I think this is it. However, I
Yvonne: don't plan to stop. But it may not be as many,
Yvonne: but I don't plan to stop.
ETS: So I asked this question of all of my guests,
ETS: what is one thing that at the time maybe you
ETS: considered to be kind of a low, but now you
ETS: see it as something that really set you up for
ETS: the success that you are now.
Yvonne: My husband was a military person and when he came
Yvonne: back from Vietnam, he had all kinds of issues, major issues,
Yvonne: and that was that was very low. We had to
Yvonne: learn how to adjust to live in with him. The
Yvonne: kids didn't understand the military airs that he would do.
Yvonne: He was he was tougher than I was, you know,
Yvonne: and that was that was at a time that was
Yvonne: very low. But I proceeded without allowing him to allow
Yvonne: the situation to hold me back. I kind of involved
Yvonne: him in my work by asking what you think, do
Yvonne: you like this? It wouldn't have mattered if we had
Yvonne: said no, because I was going to make it anyway.
Yvonne: But it was at the time that he was he
Yvonne: had just got in and he was a very, very
Yvonne: sick man. But that was low. But I did not
Yvonne: allow my work to interfere with what I was what
Yvonne: he was doing as a sick man. I wanted to
Yvonne: have something that the kids could see Mama doing and
Yvonne: was enjoying it. And that was no stoppage because every
Yvonne: year I would shown and that showed to me that
Yvonne: whatever was going on here at the house, did it
Yvonne: stop me from doing what I wanted to do outside.
Yvonne: That was the lowest part, because there seemed to have
Yvonne: been from the veteran's point of view that he couldn't
Yvonne: get better. And that was kind of hard, but we
Yvonne: managed and we got through it.
ETS: Do you think you'll pivot again?
Yvonne: Yes, I don't know. What it is yet, But I
Yvonne: think I will. I really do, because I have had
Yvonne: things going through my mind. But it is it is
Yvonne: through fabric that I'm still seeing things that is different
Yvonne: from what I'm doing now.
ETS: Oh okay, So I hope.
Yvonne: I can get something done by this year. Oh that
Yvonne: I'll let you know that I'm headed in a new direction. Well,
Yvonne: keep us posted. We like it.
ETS: Do you think it gave you a new source of inspiration?
Yvonne: I think so. The inspiration really comes when I have
Yvonne: completed a piece of work and I look down at
Yvonne: it because it's on the floor. I'd sometimes standing on
Yvonne: the table and look down on it and say, boy,
Yvonne: this looks good. Oh boy, it says what I wanted
Yvonne: to say. Oh boy, I have created a piece of art.
ETS: I loved it so great. It's so wonderful to talk
ETS: to you, of honor, it is amazing.
Yvonne: Well, thank you. I just wanted to make sure I
Yvonne: said something about the people who helped me along.
ETS: Oh please.
Yvonne: And that's more than Stacy Morgan and Robert Cargo. I'm
Yvonne: represented by fort Yanzi Ort now in New York. So
Yvonne: those are the people I want to say thank you to.
Yvonne: And plus there are others whose name I can't call.
Yvonne: Wants to say thank you to them as well, and
Yvonne: thanks to you guys.
ETS: Absolutely, thank you so much. Evonn Oh, it has.
Yvonne: Been my pleasure.
ETS: Yvonne still lives in the same place she has spent
ETS: her whole life, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where she is surrounded by
ETS: her beloved family and community. She currently has an exhibition
ETS: at Fort gansa Ort Gallery in New York City. You
ETS: can purchase her book, The Story of Quilting wherever you
ETS: buy books. For more on a Vaughn, follow us on
ETS: Instagram at she pivots the Podcast. We do our best
ETS: to keep you up to date on all our guests.
ETS: Talk to you next time. Thanks for listening to this
ETS: episode of she Pivots. I hope you enjoyed it and
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ETS: the scenes content on our website at she pivots thepodcast
ETS: dot com. Special thanks to the she pivots team. Executive
ETS: producer Emily Edavelosik, Associate producer and social media connoisseur Hannah Cousins,
ETS: Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and Logistics coordinator Madeline Snovak,
ETS: and audio editor and mixer Nina pollock I And yours
ETS: she pivots