The Art of Quilting

Anita Piotrowski spent decades working in insurance, and raising three kids. As  a sewer since childhood (doll clothes and more) she always had a big stash of fabrics and tucked her art inclinations into the margins of a busy life. Now 66 and retired, she’s making up for lost time. Her fabric quilts, built from her own sketches, family photos, and the fabrics that “speak” to her, are on display until March 31 in the Boricua in Chicago exhibit of four of her works at the Chicago Public Library’s Humboldt Park Branch. We sat down with Piotrowski to talk about finding your voice, late-career beginnings, and what it means to make work that belongs to your city.

You worked in insurance for most of your career. What kept you making art on the side?

It was mainly just the job to meet the ends to … put three kids through college, food, shelter. That’s all it really was. I had started straight after high school, and that was the only thing I ever knew. The artistic thing, like I said, it was until after I retired that I could just explode and do what I wanted to do.

You sketched and painted for years using images from magazines, but a woodgrain door in a photograph challenged you; you couldn’t capture it in any medium.  How did it trigger you to try quilting?

One day, just a little bit prior to me retiring, I started looking around at my fabrics.  I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness, that door that I’ve been wanting.’ It was a green door; it had this wood-like pattern to it. And I looked at one of my fabrics — I’m like, ‘That looks like a door.’ So the fabric started speaking to me.

Your quilts pull from personal and cultural memory: Vieques, the Mexican Revolution, Chicago’s skyline. How do you decide what a piece is about?

[That] is from Puerto Rico. It’s the little island called Vieques, where my father was born. We’ve gone back there many times. When my parents were alive, they owned a house there, and we’d go visit but that was his  Tia, his aunt.

Since I had done the ones in Puerto Rico, and I’m Mexican and Puerto Rican I thought, you know, let me see. I’ll try Humboldt Park Library.

You applied to an open call at the Harold Washington Library and weren’t selected, but it still ended up being a turning point. What came out of that experience?

They said thank you very much, you weren’t chosen. They only chose four or five out of two or three hundred people. But they said, you are now listed in the hanging files at the Chicago Public Library, along with all the artists going back to the 1900s. My brother pointed that out to me. He said, “Anita, do you realize when your great grandchildren want to research their grandmother, you will pop up?” That was the prize. That was like, oh, I’m recognized, people are going to see my art. I didn’t care that they didn’t choose me.

 What do you want people to take from the workshop on March 21?

The fun thing about it is showing somebody how to do it, and then letting them take off . What we’re going to do is very simple … they could put whatever they want. You’ve got to use your imagination. And if it makes them three times the artist, do it.   Take your joy and do it. That’s all I ask.

What does aging with attitude mean to you?

“Now I’m retired… I could just explode and do what I wanted to do. Like I said, you jump in and you swim. And you just keep going.”

Anita Piotrowski’s work is on display until March 31 at the Chicago Public Library’s Humboldt Park Branch. Her Art Quilt workshop takes place on March 21. Registration is full, but additional dates may be added. Visit chipublib.org/events for updates.

Photo (top) Anita Piotrowski with “Wisdom and Youth,” one of her four works on display at the Chicago Library.

Photo (inset) Island Sunset by Anita Piotrowski, also on display at the Chicago Library.

NaBeela Washington, an emerging Black writer, holds a Master’s in Creative Writing and English from Southern New Hampshire University and Bachelor’s in Visual Advertising from The University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has been published in Eater, The Cincinnati Review, and others. Learn more at nabeelawashington.com