YEARNING FOR AMISH....
by Deborah Forster, writing for Melbourne's AGE, 18/7/97.

I went to see the Amish quilts on display at the National Gallery. Stark, simple, the quilting small and even as the footsteps of bees, and jewel-colored - the red of rubies, the greens of emeralds and plenty of deep purple. These are bold quilts, made with soul and vision, a way of seeing. There's nothing pretty about them; they are strong, handsome things, messages from the hearts of women who don't care what anyone thinks of their quilts. This Is what makes them art. They come from the inner room and they are made to please their makers.

The exhibition is called Lit From Within and how well that fits the makers of these quilts. Around the walls are black and white plctures of Amish girls in their plain dresses and other plctures of Amish buggies.

I don't want to be Amish any more, I'm over it now. I did go through a period of hankering for all that order, the security, the peace, the quilting bees and the lack of cars and, of course, the clothes. I'm not thinking about that anymore. Anyway, you could say l live a kind of Amish existence here in Melbourne. I wear navy pants and cardigan and a plain shirt most days and, in summer, something similar only lighter. Pretty Amish- updated, but Amish-ish.

There is something idyllic and fundamental represented in the pictures of the Amish people and their quilts. It's as if they hold the secret of life by the tail, as if they have sirnplicity in a bottle sitting on their table. The Amish don't need much money. They keep their kids close by to educate them. They live within their walls. They make quilts. They cook. They don't have telephones blasting away at them. They have to work, sure, I know, but its honest sweat-raising work. Well, maybe I'm not over this Amish thing but I'm not rushing over to Lancaster County.For everything you gain there's something you have to give up. Maybe I like my freedom more than l think l do.

Anyway, I'm embarking on another quilt. Definitely Amish. My husband wants one strong and simple. He likes the plainest of them all, the bars, but I might still be able to go for the big diamond. Whatever, I will go down to the patch-work shop and mull over fabrics and consider combinations and make a little piece of Lancaster County come alive here in Melbourne.
And when I'm once again engulfed by fabric, when the kitchen table is deep in the half-moon of cloth and scissors, I will think of my mother and her sewing. I will think of the days when I would sort through her sewing basket for her,rolling the cotton back into its reels, tidying and sorting the chaos of it all back into order.Then I will think of her sewing and sewing. The brr, brr of the machine punctuating the afternoons. Think about all the women who've ever picked up a needle and thread and sewn, and smiled at the beauty they have made.

My mother worked in a clothing factory for a long time when I was a child. In the afternoons, I would often walk down and wait for her and look into the doors of the factory and see the remains of the day's work, the scraps of fabric washed all over the floor as if the tide were leaving.
After her youngest child, my sister, was born, Mum was an outworker. She bought an industrial machine from the factory, paid it off and worked for hours in the kitchen. I remember her back hunched over the sewing, remember Sarah the baby sitting beside her playing in a cardboard box.

The new quilt will have the dull reds and the mossy greens of the Amish. The quilting is a long way off yet, but I'm thinking of having a star in the centre and maybe some birds' wings in the corners, well if not the wings, at least there will be feathers, there will have to be feathers. Or perhaps I'll quilt the image of my mother's back hunched at the machine, the curve of it into the feathers. Maybe l will.

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YEARNING FOR AMISH.... by Deborah Forster, writing for Melbourne's AGE, 18/7/97.

YEARNING FOR AMISH....
by Deborah Forster, writing for Melbourne's AGE, 18/7/97.