Quilts and Quilt Retreats at Hearts and Hands
The quilt world is very near and dear to my heart. I began collecting and researching quilts in 1965... My grandmother Anna Stocker Reuther was a quilt maker and when I moved to California in 1965 I brought the crib quilt that she had made for me. Her photo now sits on the mantle at Hearts and Hands.
In 1972 Julie Silber and I opened Mary Strickler's Quilt Gallery in San Rafael California. The quilt world was just beginning to blossom in those early years of the gallery. We traveled extensively, collecting antique quilts, meeting many collectors and quilt makers, and began curating museum shows in 1974.
Our quilt show at the San Francisco Art Institute was a great success and was followed by our major show at the Oakland Museum "American Quilts: A Handmade Legacy" in 1982.
We worked with the history department at the Oakland Museum and created a world which documented the life of American women from birth through death. We used antique quilts, photographs, journal entries, and many artifacts from daily life which gave the viewers a complete experience of the life of the 19th century American woman.
The Oakland show had a profound effect on my life and the path that I would follow. Soon after the show ended we closed Mary Strickler's Quilt and I began to envision the next part of my life's journey.
Over the next 15 years, beginning with my 40th birthday, I began a deep spiritual quest. I studied Buddhism and began a meditation practice. I also began a deep and personal relationship with the Goddess and the Sacred Feminine as She is re-emerging in our world today. I spent three years studying with cross-cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien and it was during this time that my long time desire to open a healing and retreat center came to fruition.
I found the 1860s homestead late in the Winter of 1994 when the flowering quince was just beginning to blossom, and I deeply felt that I was lead or called there by "spirit."
When I approached the front gate my Grandmother, Anna Stocker Reuther, appeared to me and said that this is where "my dreams would come true." And when I entered the house and explored all the wonderful buildings and grounds I knew that I had to try to make my dream a reality. It felt like all the pieces of my life's quilt (my years of teaching nursery school, my years in the quilt world - creating beautiful stores, curating museum shows that celebrated women and their lives - my years of spiritual exploration) would now all come together and support me in creating this healing and nourishing environment for others - Hearts and Hands at Cider Creek.
In my work with Angeles Arrien and my years of meditating I had developed the tools and skills to work with my clear intention and vision... We had a vision quest every year with Angeles that supported my dreams and helped me manifest and bring the center to fruition. I prayed hard and kept on purpose with great commitment and passion. And this year, 2001, seven years into having the center, and with the completion of the dormitory rooms upstairs, I feel that Hearts and Hands has now fully become the vision I had so many years ago of the sweet, nurturing and healing environment for all to enjoy and to be touched and changed by.
Creating a place for quilters to come and make quilts has been a great joy for me and a coming together of my many worlds. When the quilters are at work creating their quilts in the workshop space, dying fabrics in the garden, and living together in the big house, all is right in the world. I have such a deep feeling of contentment and peacefulness...and I know they do too!!
And Hearts and Hands is the ideal place for quilt groups and guilds to come on retreat. The workshop space has been designed for your quilting needs - with excellent lighting, direct and indirect, and eight-foot work tables. My extensive library of quilt books is available to guests and I am happy to give you a quilt show from my personal collection of antique quilts.
And now Julie Silber and Jean Demeter of the Quilt Complex live in Albion minutes up the road and they have an extensive collection of antique quilts for sale and many wonderful quilt lectures to present to your group. And Rainbow Resource Fabrics is also just minutes away for your fabric shopping delight! |
