I can truly say that I followed the path of the yellow brick road. I meet some scary creatures along the way and I hung in there. I found out that this picture was after the funeral of my grandfather- John Lindsey Lewis. He was born and lived his entire life in McDonough, GA. He was a great family man-father of ten children. A wonderful side note is that almost all of his children went to college and graduated in the 1930’s and 40’s. I am sure it was a sad day for the grown ups, but the children saw it as another day to play in my grandmother’s wonderful yard. Two cousins (Aileen Harris and Darryl Lewis) are missing from the picture, however, I am sure they were around somewhere. I started this quilt because I wanted to be in an exhibit about Georgia landscapes and people. Sad to say that I was not accepted into the exhibit but ended up with a family treasure about a great Georgia family-mine!
I was surprised by the reception of this quilt at the family reunion last year (as unfinished as it was). I pray that I will be able to bring more of the old family pictures to life. I’m pretty sure, I probably won’t broad-cast the process to the world. I like the solitude of the work. I cherish being alone in a room making the magic happen. I found that I like looking at the end result and knowing inside the mistakes I made and how I fixed them. My secret.
Thanks for taking this journey with me.
