“Gallimaufry” is defined as a mixture or a hodgepodge of items brought together as one. This exhibit is a gallimaufry of textile and fiber art quilts including a group color challenge, a textile homage to the OSU Women’s Building, and other individual member work of the group “Loosely Bound.”

Loosely Bound is made up of 11 regional fiber artists who have been meeting since 2004 each month to study, critique, create, support and learn. Members are Nancy Bryant, Diana Cleland-Boyle, Marcia Gilson, Marcy Gregg, Babette Grunwald, Liz Hoffman, Susan Johnson, Kerry McFall, Ann Smith, Sidnee Snell, and Shirley Strub.

Loosely Bound’s creative explorations include a variety of media and techniques, always with some kind of fiber or textiles at the core.

“The name ‘Loosely Bound’ represents an acknowledgment that our skills and experiences come from a variety of traditions built by past artists, academics, quilters, historians, home economists, and family members. We are loosely bound to these traditions, yet appreciate and give homage to the people working in these realms past and present,” said Liz Hoffman, Loosely Bound member and one of the exhibit coordinators.

Nancy Bryant, the other exhibit coordinator, said for the last three years the group has selected a common theme and created a piece based on that.
“For the current exhibit, we each drew a color name from the hat. Each of us has created a 24-inch square piece that features the selected color.”
This exhibition is part of Quilt County 2009, a biennial community exhibit that’s been held throughout Benton County every other year in the month of September since 1991.

The Memorial Union Concourse Gallery is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, through Sept. 27.  After Sept. 27, the Gallery is open 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to midnight on Fridays, 7:30 a.m. to midnight on Saturdays, and 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Sundays. For more information contact Susan Bourque at 541-737-6371.

Melissa Cadotte, left, a Cheldelin Middle School social studies teacher, joins Kay Stephens, faculty for Language Arts Licensure for the College of Education, and Amy Knoke, a language arts instructor at Corvallis High School, as they admire Stephens’ batik quilt, one of many that a College of Education alumni quilting group has made over the last year. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

For a handful of former masters students, it was time for their monthly quilting bee, a chance to learn new sewing techniques as well as talk over their latest classroom challenges and bounce ideas off each other. The women were formerly students in the same College of Education cohort, and have now been friends for years.

During the weekday, the women have their own classrooms to preside over, but once a month, they go back to being students, under the tutelage of their former mentor Kay Stephens, Coordinator of Language Arts Licensure for the College of Education.

As masters students in the College, the women began quilting with help from Stephens, an avid seamstress. Upon graduation, the women wanted to continue their quilting lessons, so they began to meet in 2007, and formed a sort of informal quilting bee.

Melissa Cadotte, a social studies teacher at Cheldelin Middle School in Corvallis, holds up one of the quilts she’s made.

“We started with t-shirt quilts, Stephens said. “It took us from January to June. They were huge.”

At first the quilting group was simply about expanding skills, like piecing complicated patterns and learning how to hand-dye fabrics. But the group has grown to be much more.

Last November, they decided to move on from making quilts for friends and family members, and start piecing quilts for those in need. They’ve now decided to make quilts and donate them to the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence (CARDV) for the women and children who use the center’s safe house. They’re using fabric donated by various OSU faculty and staff members, as well as designs from donated quilt books and magazines.

And when the women gather to sew, they aren’t doing it in silence. Many times, the quilting bee quickly turns into a discussion on best practices. Since they’re all now language arts teachers in Oregon schools, they have a lot to discuss with each other.

For Stephens, the chance to listen to teachers currently in school gives her a chance to refresh her own teaching, as she has been out of a K-12 classroom for years.

“You keep me in touch with what’s going on in the classroom,” she told the group.

She’s also pleased at how quickly her sewing students pick up on new lessons.

Kilee Sowa, a teacher at Memorial Middle School in Albany, works on a quilt for a soon-to-be math teacher, based on a Sudoku pattern.

“They’re so easy to teach,” she said, because they are teachers themselves, and readily absorb the lessons she’s providing for them.

And as all teachers know, learning is a life-long process, and the monthly quilting session is another way to keep those neurons firing.

“Kay could charge us a lot (for lessons),” said Kilee Sowa, who teaches at Memorial Middle School in Albany. “But we pay her in fine company.”

~ Theresa Hogue