Quilts and Golf

I’m feeling especially sad today.  First, I have a cold and then, it’s February and I live in the north. Even when it’s a record setting mild winter like this year, February is still gray and wan. (Can a month be “wan?”) Around me, issues seem wearying whereas - when I am feeling more optimistic - they are energizing sparks, mind puzzles to solve.

For instance, in the suburban community where I live, an off-shore conglomerate is selling it’s locally owned property. Ordinarily, this could be a boon to local citizens but in this case, the property is two nearly adjoining golf courses comprising a bit over 400 acres.  A giant stone quarry sits in the arm pit of these two parcels. The quarry is still being worked but can play out within a few short years when it will become a 200 acre lake fed via underground springs. 

Citizens - as we’ve long known - may SAY they want change but only for other people, never themselves, and if their house is adjacent to a golf course that’s suddenly up for grabs? Pure panic! Meetings are called, people beat a path to the town hall, and armies are enlisted to print and pass along flyers, post lawn signs.

But golf courses are a dying business.  Growth has been flat for decades; golf courses - both private and public - are in trouble nearly everywhere.  Rounds played nationally are down 10 - 20% since 2009.  The National Golf Foundation reports that the game is down 5 million players in the last 10 years and 20% more players are likely to quit in the next few years.

At the other end, fewer younger players are coming onto greens.  The hot demographic - those players between 29 and 49 years old - have very little time to devote to 18 holes of golf and they generally have no extra money for golf trips where time becomes a non-issue.  The game is “too hard” for younger players to feel they can master - and they have a full menu of other activities anyway - and women remain poor beggers at the gate of most golf clubs.  And as if all this isn’t a stacked anti-golf deck, environmentally, golf courses are not very friendly. They are terrible water guzzlers and all those chemicals that keep the grass green filter directly to the water table. 

The perfect solution for my little suburb? I don’t know but it’s out there and I hope political leaders and citizens have the sense and will to find a compromise that elevates the quality of life for everybody, not just a few who happens to have back yards smooching the 9th green.

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Pat Pauly

I love quilts. Here are some of my favorites.  Pat Pauly is well-known for taking the quilt into print making/painting/patching arcs of originality.  But here’s a photograph that she posted on Facebook of a new quilt and it’s actually pieced and patched and top stitched and I like it very much.

Season Evans Community Quilt

Season Evans (don’t you swoon at that name?) is new to me but this Community Quilt is brilliant! Go to her website and look at these jewels. The backs are also pieced and quilted in totally unique patterns (and more traditional) from the front -  both sides are “finished art.”

Washington, D.C. foreclosure quilt

Kathryn Clark remains an artist whose work is cerebral and socially relevant as well as interesting to look at.  As soon as I saw her foreclosure quilts, I knew she had that mysterious combination that comes along rarely and I was delighted that the Smithsonian Museum agreed and purchased one of her pieces this year for the Renwick permanent collection.

Denise Schmidt

Denyse Schmidt has found a route that combines art pieces and commercial venture.  She sells quilt designs  - and the material to reach the end results - and teaches classes and writes books and…you get the idea. Therefore, among purist, she sometimes gets one of “those looks.” But I love her sense of graphic design and minimalism.

So here are my picks. The world of quilt making is vast. Make your own list and MAKE YOUR OWN QUILT! (Before golf season starts…)