This week's episode features stories from Mt. Kisco quilter Rona Spar and Katonah-based fabric artist, collector, and educator Kim McCormack. The interview with Rona Spar was recorded at ArtsWestchester on Jan 5th, 2020 while the interview with Kim McCormack was recorded at her home residence on Feb. 3rd, 2020.
Sewing Community is part of ArtsWestchester's Folk Arts Program, made possible in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
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Rona Spar
My mother made all my clothing on a Singer machine. That’s how I learned to sew at the age of five. I had a great aunt who had a fabric store on Pitkin Ave. in Brooklyn. I was the only girl in the family. She spoke not one word of English. Our relationship was she would give me fabric and I would make things for my dolls. I was a little kid. And then they finally condemned that building…she was 90 something or other when they did that. There were no quilt makers in the family. My uncle was a furrier though . He was trained as a tailor in Europe and when he came to this country he became a furrier. He was very well known.
I’ve always sewed but just to turn up pants and make skirts shorter. And then I discovered quilting, about 20 years ago. I took a class, met some people who were with Northern Star quilters guild and it’s been going on from then. I’ve always done quilts from patterns. I love making quilts for babies. I’ve made quilts for my grandchildren when they go off to college. Wedding quilts for nieces and nephews and so on. But lately I’ve become very interested in improvisational quilting, and modern quilting and that is what I am doing now.
I am fascinated with color and fabric. More so than the patterns, although I am getting much better at curved piecing and things like that. I love colors. I am very much loving the color of fabric. And texture. Color and texture. I have been saving pieces of whatever would have hit the floor. Because it’s waste and would have thrown them in the garbage. But I just kept putting them in a bag. It was snowing one day and I said, “what am I going to do today?” I am not going out driving. I am going to sew all that stuff together. And it got bigger and bigger and it looked like Joseph and the Amazing dream coat, and I loved it. And then when I saw that I was going to come here and that you were looking for fabrics, I said “let me bring that.” I’m planning to make another one because there are lots more pieces of fabric to come.
Kim McCormack
My name is Kimberly McCormack, and I live in Katonah New York…I would say, career wise... I kind of married the two passions that I had which was for art and education. So I’ve worked with all different kinds of materials. I came into this world with a passion to make and create and do. I’ve always had different medians, materials, things that I was working with when I was younger and one of the things I got when I was young was a small hand loom from my godmother who was Swiss. And so I looked at the directions and I put that away (laughs) and started playing with the thing. I figured out how to string it up, and I just wove this thing and I made what I wove into this little bag that I could carry stuff in…like a shoulder bag.
In art and making art, I always had this appeal and attraction to things that went beyond the flat and the 2D into more of a 3D embossment. I got into print making very young. I did etchings but I would take them into this really deeply textural plates and things that was not just about surface but was more about these kind of layers and levels. And really, I did the same thing with the textiles, which is how I got into weaving in college and did a lot of textile work. And it’s led me to collect textiles from all over the world. There is just something in the feel of fabrics that I’ve always loved. I have given you a lot of fabrics for the project, however, I still have quite a number of bins which I’m thinking I will probably have to go through now and see if I can donate more and get rid of. But there are pieces like…I have a beautiful piece of fabric that I got when I was living in London, from Harrods maybe. One of these big famous stores. And it’s this gorgeous fabric. I used it for different things but I’ve never like cut it up [laughs]. And I still have it. I won’t get rid of it. It’s so funny. And yet I haven’t had it out of the box in I can’t tell you how long.
You know, with sewing, like I said, I started in home ec in school but I also remember my mom always had a sewing machine. And she sewed a lot of clothes when we were young…dressing my sister and I alike which... I don’t know. So I’m sure that that exposure to sewing was really sort of my beginning love of it. But I wasn’t somebody who liked to take a pattern and make something but I did start just making clothes. I remember when I was coming home from college in England I got word that my dad had a trade deal with the QE2 We were coming home on the boat and I had no clothes related to being on this QE2 type boat. So I just grabbed some fabric and a sewing machine and started making clothes so I’d have something to wear on the boat.
My mom spent quite a lot of time in India where I have now more recently. So I have fabric pieces that she brought back. Fabric is an amazing … they have stories within them too…how they’re printed, how they’re created, how they’re woven, how the country they have come from is reflected in the fabric…the culture is reflected in that fabric. For me, I think that’s really the pull and appeal.
There is something very connected to that meditative part in us, when we put our hands on textiles. I don’t know why or what, but I have seen this when I’m teaching weaving. I’ve seen it when I do fabric work. There is something that calms in you…and that brings that ability to express ideas and talk about things…or get into very deep things. I did one project…I do a lot of work with seniors as well…and fabric just bring up a ton of things for people like that. The stories! It connects to something real in their life at that moment, to what is really important to them.
When I was doing a suitcase immigration project in a school, with a lot of kids…I have done this in many schools… I took in this really old suitcase, a leather suitcase with the patches from all different countries. And I would fill the suitcase and the kids would have to, by looking and going through the things in the suitcase, tell me who the person is that immigrated over, who came. What I did was I set it up as a women who was a seamstress. I would say to them “Well here are the things that she brought with her. What do you think she did? Was it a woman or a man? What do you think she did when she came here? How did she make money? I had this ancient old box I had. In it I had a thimble and these tiny old scissors. Things that were related around sewing. I had a couple of these old christening gowns. I had a doll stand that I think is for making clothes for dolls…what I can tell from this thing. It just a bunch of interesting odd stuff. Then they had to make their own suitcase for their family’s immigration here. And what would you bring if you could only fit what goes in this sized suitcase? And this kid brought in (laughing) her giant stuffed animal. I’m like “what part of that is going to get stuffed in the suitcase?”