The Provenance

December 5 2014.

Time is flying and the holiday season will be upon us sooner than we can imagine.  Despite the fact that our initial November dump of snow took a beating in the rain that followed, we have another foot of the fresh white stuff that fell on Wednesday.  The world is freshened up once again. Today was a busy day as I continued to nurse my broken ankle, but put that sitting time to a good use by sewing the provenance on each of my landscapes.

Google defines a provenance as follows :

prov·e·nance

noun

1. the place of origin or earliest known history of something.

   "an orange rug of Iranian provenance"

   synonyms:

   origin, source, place of origin; More

   • the beginning of something's existence; something's origin.

     "they try to understand the whole universe, its provenance and fate"
   • a record of ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality.

     plural noun: provenances

     "the manuscript has a distinguished provenance

Quilt made by grandma or her mother,
 probably in the 1940s

All of us probably have an old quilt around our house that was made by a grandparent or a relative. Antique stores often have beautiful, soft, old quilts made by the loving hands of someone. Unfortunately, most of these timeless beauties do not have a provenance on them and as they get passed from generation to generation no one really remembers where they came from or who made them. Fortunately, there are quilt collectors out there who can usually date the quilts based on the fabrics and batting used, but that doesn't help us determine  who the maker was.  What a shame that all those talented, hard working artist women go unknown and not named.  In the old days quilting was utilitarian. Quilts were for warmth.  There worth as works of art was certainly secondary.  I hope woman are changing that notion in the 2000's as we continue to craft incredible works of quilted art.



I have a great quilt that my grandmother made me when I was in my early twenties.  Grandma was among the last of the quilt makers who preferred (more out of financial necessity) old clothes or bed sheets for fabric.  She cut all the pieces with scissors, not rotary cutters, and many times sewed the pieces together by hand. All the quilting was done on large wood quilting frames, surrounded by chairs for would be quilters, over the winter in her living room or ours. She once told me that I was among the worst hand sewers she had ever met ( I hated hand sewing).  I didn't take any offense because it was impossible to duplicate her beautiful even stitches or take her laughing comments very seriously.  As a legacy to her, may I say that Jessie C. McTavish-Howell was one of the great quilters of her time but apart from her family, completely unknown.  I like to look at quilts in antique stores and wonder if any were hers.  Unfortunately, no one will ever know.

Grandma's provenance

The provenance on this quilt that she made for me, as you can see from the picture, has only my name and the year the quilt was made,1977. There is no mention of the quilt maker. Grandma was well into her 80's when she made this one.  I really wish she had signed it as a lasting legacy to the quilt making skills she had honed over years growing up on a farm near Teeswater, Ontario. I knew of only one other quilt that she put a similar provenance on and that was one she made for my brother.  She made many quilts over her 86 years but whoever has them now, will likely have no idea they were made by her hands. 


The fact is that all quilts are art and they are the artistic expression of someone. The patterns, fabrics, size, materials used for the batting (old clothes were once used),  colour choices and even the style of the quilting, whether by hand or machine, forms a historical record of the time the quilt was made. Each quilt tells a story about the quilt maker. A provenance is a record of who made the quilt.  It is a historical record and it  is really important that you include one on every quilt you make (although I am guilty of being so happy to be finished a quilt that I skipped that last step of naming and signing it....too bad).

So here is my advice to you:
1) give all of your quilts a name
2) include your own name
3) include the year and place the quilt was made
6) if it is for someone special, include their name and relationship to you (i.e. For my daughter, Heather) 
7) if it is a gift celebrating a special occasion, like a wedding, birthday, graduation or anniversary be sure to include that too

 It is great fun to think of a name for your work and it usually ties the quilt to the story behind it. Sometimes I have a name for my piece before I have a plan for  how the quilt will look.  Included with the name should be where and when the quilt was made.  I usually write, Muskoka 2014 (or whatever the year is).  I sign the provenance in my own script.  

 Nancy's Choice is the name of a lap quilt I made with my cousin Nancy.  She is the person responsible for getting me into quilting.  Diagnosed with a lethal cancer in her mid 40s, she thought quilting would be a way to tie family and friends together with an activity that we could do together during her treatments and times when she needed recovery and bed rest. We all agreed, some of us reluctantly!  During one of her times free of chemo and radiation,  a group of us took a quilting course in Muskoka.  I didn't finish the quilt until Nancy was quite sick.  It seemed appropriate to name it after her.  Quilting was her choice and in fact, she selected all the fabrics for this quilt as well.  I named the people who took the course with us on the provenance.  The quilt forever tells the story. It reminds me that she once lived and laughed with me.  It reminds me of the bond of friendship we all shared at that time. 

My grandmother used embroidery, directly onto the quilt for the provenance she put on mine.  Some people use ink jet printers to make labels on contrasting or coordinating fabric. Some people prefer free motion quilting or embroidery.  The important thing is that the provenance will stand the test of time.  I prefer to use a permanent fabric pen on a piece of fabric and hand stitch it to the back of the landscape, lap or bed quilt.  I press it to set it.  Art quilts won't likely be washed and so fabric pens and hand stitching work very well.

On a happy note my skier landscape is complete.  The provenance for it is to the left.  I called it Solitary Skier.  It is from a memory of skiing towards an island on Skeleton Lake but it could be a combination of many memories of skiing frozen Muskoka lakes or Georgian Bay, always with a dog at my side.  I love this landscape.  It incorporates the use of white paint to show a bit of snow falling against the land in the distance.  It also uses some sheer fabric on top of the snow to soften the snow a bit.  Winter skies can be so cool and often a blueish grey.  I tried to get that cold feeling but also to  balance it with the warmth a skier feels when he or she is moving or when the sun makes a peek out.  It is going to be hard to sell this one; to give it up.  It tells quite a story.

Solitary Ski