Gregory Hatch, graduate student, spends Saturdays live quilting to have conversations and tell stories of his family and life as a gay man.
Some might consider quilting a metaphor for family, but Gregory Hatch sees it in a different way than many might.
“I’m not actually thinking of the romantic idea of all these pieces coming together,” said Hatch, a graduate student studying sculpture and extended practice. “I’m actually thinking (about how) you have the backing, the middle, the batting inside and the top cover. They’re forced together through the quilting. It’s the idea that you don’t get to choose your family but you have that tie no matter what.”
Hatch spends his Saturdays at the Kennedy Museum of Art live quilting in hopes of completing his first quilt that originally belonged to his great-great-grandmother. He began doing this last Saturday and will continue through Feb. 14.
His exhibit is part of a larger project called “Rainbow’s End.”
Hatch asks people who come to watch him quilt to tell him their stories. He is collecting these stories to display them next to his work.
“It became these pieces about conversation because I’ll admit that that’s very self-indulgent ... I get to talk to people about my family and my life,” Hatch said. “I get to hear them and through questions and conversations, I get to hear about their lives and learn what we have in common and not.”
The Flint Public Art Project in Michigan first introduced Hatch to live quilting. There was another factor in Hatch choosing to go to Flint — it’s where his husband, Chris, is from.
The trip, which took place in summer 2014, not only allowed Hatch to learn about live quilting, but also to connect with Chris’s extended family.
“It’ll be six years this October, so we passed five years. We’ve been married for four, and I haven’t killed him yet,” he laughed.
Family is important to the couple. The pair still has the cake topper Chris’ grandfather made by sawing apart two bride and groom cake toppers and gluing the grooms together to add to the top of the homemade cake.
“The wedding pictures we have displayed are my family, his family, and the cake,” Chris said.
While family and cake are important, Hatch said, it’s also essential to him to continue the tradition of quilting and introduce his nephews and niece to it. He hopes to collaborate on a quilt or teach them to sew.
Hatch said he enjoys creating something through a performance — although many of the conversations he has prevent him from finishing. He said that when people he knows visit him at the exhibit, their conversations are deeper than normal discussions they might have daily. When Hatch is not at the exhibit, a voice recording plays.
Petra Kralickova, curator of the Kennedy Museum of Art, said the exhibit is a “site-specific” installation, meaning the artist takes a space and works with it to create the exhibition. Hatch filled his space, a nook near the entrance of the Kennedy, with pillows and hung a curtain behind where he worked that resembles a quilt.
The space he chose, Kralickova said, isn’t frequently used for exhibitions.
“He had an idea but he also knew how he’d utilize a specific area,” she said. “He had that spot in his eyes so he was able to talk to me specifically about what he wanted to do in there.”
Hatch said in creating a quilt with such close personal value, he has to remember the project isn’t going to be perfect.
“That’s the other thing, the idea of being worried I was going to ruin this, but I realized that, no, it’s part of this project,” Hatch said. “These are my markings. This is how I am marking the quilt and it’s going to be the imperfections and uneven stiches. It’s going to be those things because it’s honest.”
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