Craft in America

(playful music) I started hand-sewing things that I called wall hangings, people said, "oh, those look like quilts", and I said, "what's a quilt"? (chuckles) Quilts really reflect everything, from the very, very personal to the really big social and cultural meanings. Quilts are magic, they're special. They can keep you warm, they can comfort you, they can protect you, and they even heal. Quilters are always making more that they ever need. The best part of quilt-making is being able to give a quilt to somebody else, it's like a hug. Every time I go someplace new, I see something that I want to translate into cloth. The fabrics have a life of their own, a mind of their own, that's what keeps me interested. Quilts are the embodiment of the maker, a quilt reflects that person, what's important to them. Quilts can teach us math, quilts can teach us design and color, they can teach us history, they can teach us politics. They can teach us about the human struggle. We oftentimes will say quilts are the textile pages of our shared history, and that's kind of a big sentence, but it's really true. It just makes you smile, doesn't it? Quilts are very powerful. The great spirit chose me to do this, I'm gonna tell our story. This is what human beings are required to do, to take raw material and transform them into something greater than the sum of their parts. And that's what a quilt is, that's what art is. And now, I've seen quilts made with twigs, and paper, that is all a quilt. It's a open definition now, what a quilt is. (serene music)