So, who is Kathryn Maude Wallace Haeger?  I'm simply Maudie to my family. There are so many facets to my life, it is hard to tell. Obviously it would be important to discuss who I am in relation to art and art quilts.

Do I start at the beginning or at the other end? And what would help you get to know me best?

I am an artist---we will save that for later.  
I am also a wife, mother and teacher.

As a wife I need to say thank you to my husband, Walter, who has always encouraged me and allowed me to buy cloth even when I should not have because of finances. He has been my staunchest supporter, and I am grateful for him.

I am also a daughter – the one and only – of James B. Wallace and Delores Bouras who were both artists. There was always a studio in my life – I thought that was how people had to live. It is if you are an artist.  Jim was a professor of art for over 30 years at the University of Illinois. He painted and drew beautiful pictures. Dee, as my mother liked to be called, was a painter also. My favorite paintings are her portraits. But daddy had the studio – my mother could not paint in a shared space, and she could not teach because of nepotism laws at the time. So she took all of her creativity and became the head librarian of the Art and Architecture library of the University of Illinois. I learned from this that there are times when you don’t get to do what you love, so you become creative in what you can do.

People often say – “Oh, you are an artist. How nice to have a hobby. I wish I were creative.” Creating art work is not my hobby. It is what I have to do. I get crabby if I am not allowed to sew at least once a week. While I am teaching, I do not get to be in my studio all time, but I do have to take my emotional temperature at times and give myself permission to quit whatever else I am doing and go create! 

Cooking is my hobby, if I have a hobby.  I love to cook, and it is very relaxing to me. I love to create art work too, but it is not relaxing---it is hard work.

Speaking of cooking, I am a mother also. I really wanted to be a mom, and I am. We have five children – all adopted. The first four came as a sibling group. I sat in bed one day soon after getting the kids and cried because I realized that by making the choice to adopt four children, I just put the “ka- bosh” on any career in the arts. I did not resent it, nor blame the kids, I just didn’t realize how much time children take, and of course, so does art work, so they just did not always mix.  And when you have kids, they must come first.

I kind of have three lives – one before children, one during the raising of the children, and one after. Before 1986, I wrote articles, had shows, did a couple of commissions, things like that – all in weaving.

Then came the children – which I do not regret – and the idea of warping a loom while trying to survive a day with four very exuberant children was just too much. I had tried to make a quilt when I was in high school. I had seen all my grandmother’s quilts, and I thought it would be neat to make a quilt. I did embroider tons of blue and white squares and made a quilt of those squares. So, with my beautiful brand new Bernina, and some cloth, and a magical new tool called a rotary cutter, I began to make quilts. They were kind of traditional, but not really. They were colorful. They were doable. I loved the texture and colors and patterns I could create with the cloth.  I made quilts when I could. I am a fast sewer so it did not take long to have a lot of quilt tops put together. 

I am definitely a “topper”. I love the colors and designs. I don’t really care that much about the quilting as such.

I bought a couple of books and tried different things. I never went to a class. I had the basic idea – choose a pattern, cut the strips and create the quilt. I have always admired the traditional quilts, but I really did not want to make all of them, or even a sampler. I wanted to make my own designs.

Finally, one day in 2004, I had the money and the time – yahoo!! – to go to a Nancy Crow workshop for a week. Nancy is my art quilt idol. It is not that I want to make my work to look like hers; it is that I just respect what she has accomplished so much. I am a cheerleader on the sidelines saying – Go, Nancy!

When you look at the picture of my studio you will see two black and white pieces handing on the wall near the beginning of the picture. Those were my motif. It is really quite simple – it is a road and horizon design repeated, and then of course there is the positive and the negative of the motif.

One whole online gallery has work that was created from the motif. Like the Energizer Bunny – one could go on and on and on---different colors, different patterns, different sizes, different embellishments, different “stuff” on top. I could spend a lifetime just playing with that one motif.

But there are days when I want to do something a little more "traditional", and then I bring out the New York Beauty paper piecing. I think I like these because one, they really are beautiful, and two, I have total control over them. All the points turn out like points. And so, in a way, those points and the putting together of the quilt with the other parts becomes a motif also – just much more traditional.

My fiber heritage is important. Pretty much everyone’s grandmother made quilts, and that is often how they began making quilts. Well, in my case, yes, my grandmothers made quilts, but there is more to it. I started sewing when I was four. I loved Barbie dolls because I could create clothes for them. I used to look at the costume illustrations in the World Book Encyclopedia and copy them as best as a child could. I also embroidered constantly. As a child I read good books, created doll furniture and doll clothes and embroidered.

When I did a really good job my mother would take my hands in hers, and often in tears, she would say, "Your grandmother would be so proud of you.” I never met my grandmother because she died before I was born, but her presence was certainly felt.

My grandmother was Theodora Matuelwicz Bouras. Her father was an itinerant Lithuanian tailor for rich people Russia. By the time Czar Nicholas decided to go to war with Japan, my grandmother’s family was in Georgia , Russia . My great grandfather left the country and came to the United States in 1904. The rest of the family found their way back north to Lithuania and Latvia where they earned money for passage and came to the United States in 1907. Grandma created quilts and she was also a seamstress, just as her father had been a tailor. The genes were passed down to me.

I was al so lucky enough to go to Greece in 1975 just before graduating from college. I got to go and study Greek, Byzantine and Coptic textiles for a month. My mother’s father was born and raised in Greece, and so it was like coming home for me. I did get to meet the family that was living in Athens as grandpa was the only person in the family ever to come and stay in the United States. I loved getting to see the beautifully embroidered textiles. All that rich embellishment influences me today. I love a rich surface – one with layers and embroidery and beads and “stuff”!

Where I went to school:

• University of Michigan – Dearborn, Master’s in Special Education – Inclusion Specialist, Dearborn , MI, May 2004
• Eastern Illinois University , Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Weaving, Charleston , IL, 1975

Where I continued to learn:

• The Artist in Business, Seattle, WA
• Greek Weaving Techniques, American Farm School, Thessaloniki , Greece . A month long educational working tour of Classical and Byzantine Greece, with an emphasis on textiles.
• Feltmaking, Lane Goldsmith, Arrowmont School for the Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN.

Art related work experience :

• Acting Director of the Greater Lafayette Museum of Art, Lafayette , IN      
• Assistant and Education Director, Greater Lafayette Museum of Art, duties similar to director, total time about three years, Lafayette, IN

Freelance Art Instructor:

• Quilting workshops, Cincinnati , OH area
• Elements and principles of Design, lectures for museum docents, Greater Lafayette Museum of Art, Lafayette , IN
• Marketing lecture for artists, Purdue University , West Lafayette , IN
• Marketing lecture for artists, Eastern Great Lakes Fiber Conference, Buff al o , NY
• Elements and Principles of Design in Weaving, three-day workshops, Dunes Spinners and Weavers Guild, Muskegon, MI
• European influence on American Art, lecture to museum docents, Greater Lafayette Museum of Art, Lafayette , IN
• Elements and Principles of Design, workshop for teachers, Shelley , ID
• Art Marketing Workshop, Weaver’s Guild of Idaho Falls, Idaho Falls, ID

Things I have written:

• In Perspective, newsletter of the Greater Lafayette Museum of Art, editor
• “A Cure for the 'First Brochure' Blues", The Crafts Report, November, 1983       
• “Fenominal Felt: We Owe its Magic to the Scale” Humbolt Bay Sheep and
• Wool Company Newsletter. Humbolt, CA. Fall, 1983       
• “Felted Sculpture: Mysterious and Magical Mummies” Humboldt Bay Sheep and Wool Company Newsletter, Humboldt, CA. Spring, 1984
• “Fenominal Felt: Insulation Plus Beauty” Humboldt Bay Sheep and Wool Company Newsletter, Humboldt, CA. Spring, 1985.
• “Felted Holiday Cards: Season’s Greetings in Wool” Humboldt Bay Sheep and Wool Company Newsletter, Humbol dt , CA, Fall 1985
• “The Grateful Artist Syndrome Must Go” Craft Range, March/April, 1984  

Places that have shown my work:

• Hoffman 2006 Challenge, Traveling Exhibition, 2006 -2007
• 25th Fabrics of Legacies National Art Quilt Exhibit, Lincoln Center Galleries, Fort Collins, CO – June to July, 2006
• The Alliance for American Quilts – Traveling exhibition – 2006-2007
• How Does Your Garden Grow? Quilter’s Hall of Fame, Marion, IN, 2006
• Columbus , OH , Art Quilt Network juried exhibition – 2005
• Fiber98, Textile Arts Center, Chicago, IL – 1998
• Black and White Exhibit, Artists Unlimited, Inc., Tampa, FL - 1997
• The Grail Fiber Show, Grailville, Cincinnati, OH - 1994
• Preble County Art Show, Preble County Art Center, Preble County, OH - 1992
• Cincinnati Quilt Show– 1988
• Richmond, IN – Richmond Art Museum -One Woman Show – 1988
• Jay County, IN – Jay County Art Center - One Woman Show – 1986
• West Layfayette, IN – Eli Lilly Building – a triptych weaving commission - 1985
• Urbana, Illinois – Mercy Hospital Chapel – right and left altar pieces commission - 1983
• Idaho Falls, ID – Fiberarts III – 1983
• Salt Lake City, UT , Atrium Gallery – One woman show – April, 1983
• Idaho Falls, ID – Women’s Art Fair- 1982
• University of Illinois : Urbana, IL – One-woman show- June, 1982