...Rhythm & Blues.

Blue jeans that is. Avis Collins Robinson's Annie's Blue Jeans is a quilt in the African-American Quilt Exhibition in the Nelson Art Gallery at UC Davis. The quilt is almost entirely made of patches of blue jeans--specifically blue jeans having belonged to Annie Ruth Collins. It was this unique medium that first attracted me to the quilt. It is common for one to think about buying new blue jeans, or throwing out old blue jeans, but quilting blue jeans?? That isn't something the average person ever even considers. 

Once lured in by the unique choice of materials, I began to examine the quilt more closely and I found a sense of rhythm about the quilt. Rhythm is a design principle that is based on repetition of a particular motif. The reoccurring patches of Annie's jeans supply repetition, and a thus a form of rhythm for the quilt.  It is as if the jeans provide the beat for the quilt’s composition. And what is a beat without a tempo? That is wear the repeating square motif comes into play. This is an example of a more specific type of rhythm –progressive rhythm. This type of rhythm also involves repetition, but repetition of a shape that changes in a regular manner. The progressive variation in the size of the square is what makes it an example of progressive rhythm. The change in color is just another varying element that makes up such a rhythm.

Digging deeper still, there is yet another type of rhythm present here. This rhythm is less of a design concept and more of something I just happened to pick up on on a more personal level. The use of a specific person’s blue jeans (Annie’s) gives each blue jean patch a history. Each blue jean patch has a story behind it, a memory from a specific time in Annie’s past. As the viewer’s eye moves from blue jean patch to blue jean patch he/she is, in a sense, moving through history. Moving from moment to moment in Annie’s life—through Annie’s memories. And If Annie’s memories can be considered a motif, then the reoccurrence of her blue jeans would be considered to be a repetition of said motif. And presto…we have rhythm.

The blue jean beat keeps our eye moving from blue jean patch to blue jean patch—it is a steady beat through Annie’s life. The squares work as our tempo. A slow a steady tempo near the borders of the quilt gives the viewer time to admire the details of the blue jean patches (coincidentally that is also where the majority of the blue jean patches are sewn). And then, as the progressive rhythm of the squares draws our eye in closer to the center, the tempo picks up; it continues to speed up until we reach the very center—a pocket of one of Annie’s blue jeans. A pocket that holds a piece of Annie’s history inside it.