AMISH ABSTRACTIONS

Last weekend I went with a friend to the Deyoung Museum in Golden Gate Park to see the Amish Quilt exhibit, Amish Abstractions – 75 mind-blowing, psychedelic quilts, all made by hand, by Amish women, in the midwest, between 1880 and 1940. Imagine you’re the driving through Holmes County, Ohio, and you stop on the side of the road to buy some homemade pies off a buggy from zipper-less, chin-strapped Abraham. You and Abe get to talking and he ends up inviting you over to his place for more pie and coffee. You pass the barn, meet the similarly simple black and white clad family with in their simple house with simple furniture and simple things. Passing one of the bedrooms you catch a glimpse of this mathematically perfect sonic explosion of color, erupting against its stark backdrop, so out of place, yet so perfectly tucked into one of the two twin size beds. Maybe you’ve seen or heard of these before. I hadn’t. Those Amish ladies really know how to let go. Express yourself, girl.

I have two Amish stories. Once I was traveling by train from Portland, Oregon back to my job as a stone carver in Oberlin, Ohio. I love taking the train but this time I had no choice – it was right after September 11th and there were no planes in there air. I had two days to sit alone on the train with no phone, no friends, just my nickelodeon quad camera, the cometbus omnibus and a fifth of whiskey. I made friends with an Amish kid who was with his family on their way back from Mexico. They had taken their mother there to see an “experimental” doctor to help her with her brain tumor. There was some procedure they could do there and not here in the US. We were getting on alright until his old man noticed my t-shirt which said “The Beast, Kings Island”. No good and no more Amish friend.

Another time, long before that, I lived in Florida. There was a decent sized Amish population in that town that rode bikes to get around and owned a couple family restaurants. There was this one gas station near the bridge that went to the island. On the weekends I’d see these groups of Amish girls go into the bathroom there and come out all done up in make up, skirts and lots of hairspray – an inspiring transition…