By Jacquelyn Hughes Mooney ©11
On May 8th, 2011 my Big City Women series of quilts turned 17; almost grown. I had been an artist in one discipline or another for 37 years in between fits and starts of trying to fit into more “traditional” occupations of wiggling in trying to put a square peg into a round hole.
In 1991after leaving my tenure as first the creative director/choreographer for a performing dance company due to budget cuts, I did not know what I was going to do. After all who wanted a (at that time) 41 year old ex-dancer? My experience in other occupations was limited although multi-dimensional none that ever fit well although I could do the work. But in 1991 I decided or thrust into a leap of faith dreaming of owning my own business, of having a gallery to give a place for newly emerging artists a place to showcase their work.
Despite evidence to the contrary then as well if now more so, emerging artists had difficulty being part of an exhibition; it was/is not unlike the cliché “how do you get a job with no experience and or get experience with no job”? So in true Mooney form I decided to open such a space. At that time I had taken upon myself to put my art on a secondary plane to have this vision. At that time I was creating decorative pillows and soft sculpture dolls which was a struggle for me as my sewing skills were very limited having one semester of sewing in 1964 and flunking that!
But the pillows and dolls sold nicely albeit slowly. So I started driving a cab at nights to earn money to open this space naively thinking I could once opening Jambalaya that I could continue making the pillows & dolls. How naïve, idealistic and unrealistic I was! But the beauty in ignorance there is a freedom that you cannot do any wrong, so let’s go for it!
The store was a success to the point I could not create the very venue that I wanted to & that is to showcase my own work. It did not mean my creativity did not show up other ways not only in the décor, but featuring artist in all the disciplines to the point that even today 20 years later someone will evoke a memory of the place.
What I did not like was the day to day running of the place and did not have the capital to hire someone else to run it so I could create. Fast forward a year and a half later when someone walked into my gallery asking for any more of the pillows I had created. Upon my telling them that I had not made any more, the customer told me she had been taking the stuffing out and framing the covers! At first I was very indignant as it was quite difficult & tedious my doing the pillows since my sewing skills were so limited, but awhile late my brain cells kicked in and I realized “wait a minute, maybe she was on to something”! So I set up my machine in the back of the place & started sewing, sewing on off days and in between customers but instead of making pillows, I looked at what I was doing as painting with fabric; the centers was the “canvas”, the sashing was the “mat” and the binding was the “frame”.
Early Quilt called "Dis n Dat from 1992. This picture was taken in 2005 at Stagville Plantation in North Carolina:
I then took them first to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (I was living in San Diego at the time) and did nicely. Buoyed by that modest success, I tried at some smaller festivals in San Diego & did not do as well. But I kept on going. The very next year I return to the N.O Jazz & Heritage event and then it happened…
A most extraordinary thing…
As told in a later interview the following happened:
“Mooney’s vibrant and heartfelt textile art has been seen as the tangible results of her own life and the observation of human behavior.
Her popular Big City Women series was born of humble beginnings in 1994 on a trip to her home in New Orleans... She was participating for the first time in the Jazz and Heritage Festival with her decorative pillows and dolls. The day after the Fest ended one of the worst flood recorded in 200 years hit New Orleans. That night between the lightening and the continual rain, the artist woke from a deep slumber to watch what she called “the best laser show she had seen”. She, unable to sleep, started sketching the first of her now 300 appliqué designs called “Passion “that became a major leap into what has been an exciting, dizzying magic carpet ride”.
That is putting it mildly. I sold out at the Fest & was scheduled to leave that Monday, but there was something else getting ready to happen. That Sunday evening hours after the Fest closed, it started raining like I had not ever seen rain. Exhausted, I fell asleep early knowing I had an early morning flight. That was not to take place. Somewhere in the middle of the night that laser show began. As a sidebar, I had been since childhood afraid of lightning & thunder, but that night I was not afraid. From the vantage point where I was laying, I could look out at “the best laser show I had ever seen”. I was strangely very calm, then became inspired got up and started sketching what became the 1st of the Big City Women series©94.
Understand I would have told you I could not draw stick people. The 1st BCW was called “Passion”. That night the 1st ten women were born.
By morning, it was quite apparent I could not leave the city as the airport and everything was shut down as it turned out to be (at that time), the worst flood in 200 years in New Orleans! I could not even get out of the house, so using my host’s sewing machine I started creating these women. Once I could leave several days later I sold Passion. To this day I regretted selling the 1st Passion, but that time I did things without rhyme or conscious reason.
Passion©95
Proudly struttin' in silver streaked slippers...
dazzling emeralds
with a verve....
energy illuminating the midnight sky.
Showering her gifts that whoops & shouts
Thrown about the heavens, her pungent scents.
Cinnamon, lemon of orange blossoms,
creamy magnolia held...
Too long in the dark it seems...
An eternity…
Inspiring...
Coming unannounced heralding with splendored golden & coppered grandeur...
With absolutely no delusions of what she will do.
The audacity!
Spilled heavy laden liquid jasmine...
This lagniappe Elle!
Imagine...
Walking accordingly with faith, things not beheld
And proceeding with haste, not wavering grasping her bounty....
Leap!
Big City Woman! “Who are you? Will you tarry awhile?
Or…
Will you take leave quieter then you came?"
"No my sister...
I am here with you, for you & by you…
For as long as you need me to.
I am you”.
Faith!
“I will be called Passion
My name is Jacquelyn…
Speak it carefully...
Speak of me well, with all due respect....
Passion…
So much will come, while I am here.
I will tarry awhile to gather up the stars
And sprinkle this confection generously to light up the way....
Until you are ready to take up the walk & talk your talk…
With silver streaked slippers illuminating a darkened sky."
All Rights reservedJHM©95
Other of the early BCW's
But during those several days I was in a sewing & creative frenzy, including the poems about the women although I was not sharing them publicly. I returned to San Diego walked into my gallery the next day looked around & decided in my bones to close it down.
I did just that. And threw everything overboard, moved into my daughter’s tiny 2 bedroom apartment and got to work. I should say the rest was herstory. This very long background is said for one thing: make no mistake; it was not easy, not by a long shot. I sacrificed a lot many a day having to decide between buying a pack of Top Ramen Chinese noodles and buying thread.
My now very grown granddaughters in the early days helping me "quilt". This piece was later presented to author Terry McMillian.
I struggled with deciding to quit and liking having steady money coming in. Every morning I went in determined to give notice and by the time I got there convinced I the paycheck was worth it. Taking care of my physical needs was one thing, but creatively and spiritually I was malnourished. Then the fateful day occurred when coming home on the bus exhausted I went to step off the bus unaware that the bus did not pull up to the curb and went straight down on my bad leg tearing my tendons. I was ordered off the leg for a few weeks. The bank did not like that & threatened to give my position to someone else. I told them they could as I was done. Know that it was not malice, they were a business and in business to make money & I could not fulfill my obligations.
I did not look back. Within a year I was offered my first artist residency that was a near 10 year run & was published in the first book.
Even in all of that I still was to have many ups & downs curves and lonely roads, but I’ve not looked back until the last 2-3 years while being sorely tested. It seemed everything dried up in me. I was frozen, grieving, bitter & angry. Everything in me burst out health wise including a seriously marked weight gain. It is no reason for me to go into all of that as I’ve blogged numerously about it.
Then suddenly on May 8, 2011 on the day the BCW turned 17 I realized I had flowed very quietly back into creating. It smooth its way in without my even realizing it had happened with a new Big City Woman making her entrance. I had not created a new one in 4 years! And suddenly many of my files that were suppose to be wiped out of my hard drive I started stumbling upon them in chunks including my long lost manuscript for both my short story book & my book of poetry! I found myself smiling as I eased into creating like I used to when I first started with joy & purpose, not with resentment & pressure.
By no shape am I out of the woods. I have so much that needs to be address, people who have been extraordinarily patient waiting on their commissioned pieces. However I think they will be quite pleased when they see their finished art. I can see in what I’ve done so far there is a new depth & vigor in the work. As time goes by I will share some of the images.
Ironically, today in 2011 parallels with those early years as if I was starting over.
I am not…
I am indeed starting up.
Just like I did not know where 18 years ago where I was heading, I just knew I was. The difference between then & now is I am older, wiser and more experienced. Now just like then I still have my naysayers, I still have shadow people who seem to be fascinated enough with me, to do as Dr. Maya Angelou would say about what she refuses to be with others pejorative: belittle/ devalue/ make smaller/ sneering/ depreciatory /sniping. I won’t be the first nor will I ever be the last. There are too many damaged people for that to ever happen.
I am doing some or went through something that sister-friend Oprah Winfrey said her second to last week before closing her successful run about “finding herself not broken but broken open”.
That is where I am.
In fact my trajectory this year will reflect that broken open in ways I cannot tell you yet; I trust that it will simply be not unlike seeing a 60 year old Kristie Alley a board certified Big City Woman make the finals of DWTS (sorry y’all I have to crow on that one) to the some of a single parent mom do something that his predecessors could not do with all the naysayers the hounds with their blood letting could not do, to a very poor & abused Southern girl becomes the most successful person end her 25 year run in high celebration create her own network to my own daughter and others like her walk across the stage to get her degree even when some said it couldn’t be done…
But did it anyway; these are my Big City Women (and men).
Let me end with a description someone wrote about my space about mes affaires belles ~My Beautiful Belongings:
“This space will be so vibey, now and eternal; it speaks of seasons, their rhythm & its colours, be it the lunar rhythms full & waning light & dark; the seasonal rhythms & colours; the rhythms &; colours of our own personal lives & those of our extended family.
It captures it all; yet can be taken so individually to fit each person& feel, perspective, jive & flow... Rhythm & Hues is everything animate & inanimate, relating a magnetic creative force with added New Orleans flamboyance.
So very interpretive being ageless, timeless, spatial, centered, meaningful to both genders...
It can be all things to all people.
Rhythm & Hues beats, hums, sings and speaks...
It poses profiles, winks, smiles and smirks...
It all but breathes...
But then it does that, too”
May I continue to do so and perhaps even one better…. My bags are packed and I’m ready to flow.
All rights reservedJH
