Years ago I often entered my work in local quilt shows. A friend and competitor who did the same frequently asked, in frustration, "What do the judges want?" She was willing to tailor her work to their requirements, if only she could understand what those were. While I understood her desire to win, I could also see that there were several problems with her plan.
First, there is often a certain degree of luck involved in winning ribbons. Like the time that I won Best of Show for a New York Beauty variation in a show that was judged by someone who was a New York Beauty aficionado, though I knew nothing about the judge when I entered the quilt in the show. Second, how is it even possible to spend the time and attention to detail necessary to produce a prize-winning quilt when you're not excited about it? Or to place that idea in a more personal context: Just because quilting is my job doesn't mean that I have to make it as unpleasant as possible—I have enough UFOs from things I DO want to make.
Third, on the philosophical level, why is winning the goal? Isn't making beautiful quilts enough? Okay, maybe I went to far there—most of us want to win, or at least be recognized for our efforts. I'm thinking back to when my kids were in elementary school, and how much they wanted to win the soccer game, win the reading contest, win the art show prize, and I'm wondering if the drive to compete and win is hard-wired into humans. But what about having fun? Or fun's evil cousin, obsession? Or just making quilts for people who don't have them?
I also had several discussions with the same friend about how the various critera of quilt judging arose. Her premise was that all the requirements were based on soundness of structure. For example, the more quilting there was on the quilt, the more likely it was to survive; thus the amount of quilting became an important standard of judging. My position was, and still is, that quilts don't have to be pretty to survive, that in fact, a pretty quilt might be less likely to last because it will be used more; and that any principles originally based in the realm of utility quickly morphed into something quite different. I think we make them look good either to satisfy our need for beauty or to show that we really are better quilters than the other guys. Her theory is the Darwinian one—survival of the fittest. Mine is the Nanny Nanny Boo Boo—my quilt is better than yours—which might only prove that I have a more cynical view of human nature than she does.
I'm sure that I never convinced my friend that there was an inborn human drive to compete, just as she never convinced me that quilt judging was still based solely on more unselfish standards. So my response to her, and to myself, is still the same: the best chance of winning is by doing your best work making the quilts you want to make and keeping your fingers crossed that those judging them appreciate your style. It reminds me of what I tried to teach my kids: just try to do your best.
© 2011 Jane Hardy Miller
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