Conversations on the Couch
with Cathy
Fussell
FIBER ARTIST & RETIRED TEACHER We visited Fussell on a warm Saturday afternoon at her studio that she shares with husband, Fred, at the Lofts at Swift Mill. We learned about her path from being an English teacher to creating her highly detailed quilts of art after retirement. Tell us about your early life.
I was born in Louisiana and grew up in Buena Vista, Georgia. I went to the University of Georgia and then transferred to Georgia State because I wanted to study folklore with John Burson. I majored in English and education with a focus in folklore. I didn’t want to teach right then so I got a job at Westville in Lumpkin in Stewart County. I come from a long line of women who sewed and took great pride and pleasure in their sewing. In Buena Vista, the women in the community made clothing and swapped patterns and materials and ideas. My mother was just really into that. She started me sewing when I was four years old. I really started sewing in earnest in high school. I graduated from high school in ‘67, so I caughted that wave of the crafts revival and the back to the earth movement. It was great fun. My girlfriends and l in college were just so into crocheting and knitting and all that stuff.
What were some highlights of being a school teacher? Did you yearn to be in a more creative, tactile career back then? I loved certain aspects of teaching. I loved the fact that I met so many people—my students, their parents, and other teachers. I would have not been so connected to the community had I not taught. I loved the subject matter. I couldn’t live without a dose of literature every day and teaching gave me that. And the kids gave me energy. After I got home from teaching and play practice and dealt with our own children, I would plop down in front of Court TV and quilt for about an hour. That was my thing. I yearned for quilting. I wanted to be home with my children and I wanted to quilt but we just couldn’t afford that. The time was not right for quilting to make money. Back then, quilts were considered virtually worthless. 66
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As the former director of the Carson McCullers Center, what have you learned about her literature?
I love her work and I relate on a deeply personal level to it. The question I’ve thought about a great deal over the years is, “How in the world did such a young person, a 20-year-old, write with such depth and insight about issues of race, class, gender?” How did a teenager from Columbus create that character of Dr. Copeland in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter? Nobody else has done anything like that. It can only be explained by Carson’s genius.
Your children Jake and Coulter are both successful artists. Do you think any particular parenting technique or style contributed to their creativity?
They were exposed in an organic way because of Fred’s work in folklore. It was nothing unusual for a master woodcarver to be visiting or the Georgia Sea Island Singers to be at our breakfast table or Yuchi Indians would at our supper table. As daughter Coulter says, “traditional art and culture were as natural a part of the household as the saltshaker.“ We went to all kinds of events that most people don’t take their kids to. We went to music festivals, folk art When did you realize that quilting was festivals and church services that were not necessarily your next career? ‘our’ church services. Plus lots of freedom to do what As I was nearing retirement, I knew that I would they wanted to do. The main thing we did is we bought jump right into quilting, because that’s what I did every them supplies and equipment. Coulter wanted art time I got a break all my years working. But one thing supplies all the time and Jake just wanted musical that happened and started me quilting like crazy, long instruments and tapes and CDs, so we bought them all hours every day, is we moved into our loft at the Swift that stuff and just let them go with it. We gave them Mill. Bo Bartlett and Betsy Eby have studios here. They opportunities, but we did not push them. were having a holiday open house art sale and they asked my husband Fred and me if we would like to join What inspires you? him in this sale. I’ve only sold one other quilt my entire I collaborate with Fred to make the map quilts. They life, but I did well that day. Then I had a big break with get lots of attention, commissions, and are my biggest the Michelle Obama quilt and it hasn’t slowed down sale item. I have a whole series devoted to Southern since. literature. We’ll read a literary piece we find interesting People in the community have been so supportive. and Fred draws the pictures, and I pull the fabric and Henry McCoy with the Columbus Public Library invited the making of the quilt. I’ve got a relatively new series me to have a huge exhibit there a couple of years ago of outer space quilts. I’ve been inspired by images and that brought a ton of local interest. And it’s a big coming back from the Webb and Hubble telescopes. I time for fiber. Several years ago, you never saw a quilt just started making the other-space pieces because I hanging on a museum wall. But quilts have helped to wanted to make them and they’ve been popular. ————————————————————— bring an awareness of fibrous art and this year, there are major textile shows at the Met and MoMA and all Learn more about Cathy and see over at the big art museums. her quilts at CathyFussellQuilts.com.