Stories:
Cherry Heaven
by Laura Fogg
Editor’s note:
Like so many people, I felt saddened by the loss of our glorious
cherry-picking tradition. I began to contemplate how such a turn of
events could be transformed into a positive experience for our
community. So, in the summer of 2000, I contacted Lynn Meadows with
the idea of celebrating the Butler Ranch and honoring George and Ella
through documentation of the history of the ranch. In one of those
wonderful strokes of synchronicity, quilt artist Laura Fogg got
inspired to make a commemorative quilt. She contacted me for images of
George and Ella to incorporate into her design. This article is
excerpted from a longer piece she wrote about creating the “Cherry
Heaven” quilt.
As I was driving past
the old ranch on my way home from work one day, it occurred to me that
our community needed a way to collectively celebrate our wonderful
memories of the Butler Cherry Ranch. A quilt! The idea grew by leaps and
bounds as I drove down the hill towards home… a quilt that would capture
the images and the smells and the very taste of those unforgettable
cherries. And I would need a patron too, as this would be a huge and
time-consuming project. How about Fetzer Vineyards, the grape growers
who recently bought the ranch and took out the cherry trees to make way
for a more profitable crop? I approached them with the idea and some
photos of other quilts I had created, and they were completely
receptive. We worked out a plan to involve community members in the
initial design of the quilt so it would, in fact, be a collective
memory.
Over the next few
months I talked informally to individuals and participated in an
official meeting of community members who had been the most involved in
the cherry ranch. As I took in information and dredged up my own
memories, I made sketches of various ways to organize the quilt. It had
to include everything- the view over the Ukiah Valley, the pond where we
all loved to have picnics, George in his golf cart, Ella’s old red
truck, the scales, the immense diversity of people who came there,
cherry fights, ladders, the ubiquitous dust, and even George’s pet emus.
And, of course, cherries! It became clear that people preferred the idea
of one unified scene in the quilt as opposed to a bunch of smaller
squares depicting separate scenes, so I jettisoned all of the sketches
and started again with my favorite form of artistic expression- a
landscape.
Once the landscape
looked fun and finished, I used variegated rayon thread and freehand
quilted with abandon… going around many of the shapes to hold them in
place and define them, adding details like faces, textures and bucket
handles, and playing with lines in the sky and fields. At this point
my quilts usually develop a life of their own, and this one was no
exception. I cannot plan borders until I survey the finished landscape
and get a feeling for what it needs surrounding it. Sometimes the answer
is nothing. This time the answer was a lot. This quilt needed to be
considerably bigger to make a significant visual impact on the viewers,
and it needed to project a heart-warming mood of comfort and homeiness
so people, in fact, would feel like they were coming home. Good,
old-fashioned patchwork was the obvious answer, so I chose the colors of
the orchard and the sky and cut dozens of little squares to piece
together and sew on. Better, but not finished... there wasn’t enough
“cherry-ness” yet. A wide strip of Bing cherry red worked out perfectly.
Now it was time to get
George and Ella into the picture. They needed to be large and realistic,
framing the view of their land like the wonderful hosts they always
were. And the quilt would fall flat on its face if they weren’t
immediately recognizable. I had snapshots of them blown up to what I
hoped would be the correct size, and cut them apart to use as patterns
for the highlights and shadows on their faces. I assembled all of the
pieces on a background square of skin-colored fabric and freehand
quilted it all together, adding lines and details as I went. Once the
faces were finished I did the hands the same way, using my own hands as
patterns. Then I was able to build the figures, stuffing them with
polyester batting to give them some bulk. The yarn hair was a
last-minute idea to prevent hair that looked flat in comparison to the
three-dimensional quality of the rest of their bodies.
Something about
the quilt still didn’t please me. Though I had gone to great pains to
add beaded cherries to all of the trees in the background, the feeling I
wanted of exuberant “cherryness” was missing. I had just finished a
couple of other quilts where I had begun playing with three- dimensional
flowers, and the idea struck me to try some three-dimensional cherries.
I liked them. Three-dimensional cherries required three-dimensional
cherry leaves, and I liked them too. The branch across the bottom of the
quilt looked off-balance by itself, though, so another branch worked its
way up the left side.
I
looked at my finished quilt and giggled. I got it right. The memories of
the Butler Cherry Ranch and our collective love for George and Ella will
not be forgotten. People will look at this quilt and go back to “Cherry
Heaven.” I hope they will giggle with me.
