Blanket Stories: Western Door, Salt Sacks, Three Sisters

A site-specific installation commissioned by the Rockwell Museum, Corning, New York

My paternal grandmother—Lora Mildred Marie Stevenson Whisenhunt Thomas—made this quilt for me when I was a child featuring my favorite color: green. To my knowledge, she never visited New York State - but now the quilt has! She was an Oklahoma farm girl who moved to the city (Tulsa, OK) during WWII with her family to build planes for the war effort with J. Paul Getty. She embraced the conveniences of urban life, but maintained many of the rural traditions she had been raised with like gardening, thrift, preserving, baking, quilting, sewing and other home arts. She became one of the most beloved first grade teachers in Tulsa. She taught me to read and inspired my love of cooking, junk shopping and collecting. She would be VERY proud to have her quilt in a museum.