Eastern Plains with Hay Rolls, Summer – ©2006 Deidre Adams

This kind of a field, with rolled hay bales, is a very common sight in eastern Colorado and Kansas. I’ve always loved these colors – pale yellow greens, straw golds, and the faded pale blue of a midday summer sky. It’s a typical scene that feeds my love of the horizon line.

As part of the process for the Anythink Library commission, I met and talked with members of the local community who live in the area near the towns of Bennett & Strasburg, about half an hour east of Denver. The interviews were part of an oral history project that the library is doing in conjunction with the artwork commission. We had some standard questions that we asked all of the participants, although the format was freeform and many of the people also contributed some personal memories and anecdotes that were quite entertaining. They were asked about how they had come to live there, what they liked and didn’t like about it, and what kinds of life lessons they had gained from living there. Some of the questions also focused on determining their impressions of the sights and sounds and smells that they experience living on the plains. In answer to the question about colors, by far the most common answer was green, golden brown, and blue (skies). That was a validation for me of the picture I had in mind of what I was thinking of doing; I was on the right track and ready to go.

As another aspect of the community involvement component, I wanted to make the quilt from fabric supplied by the local residents, so I asked them for donations. I was overwhelmed by the response – I received enough to make the entire top layer of the piece from fabrics supplied by the community. Some of these pieces have special meaning to the people who donated them, so I wanted to keep a record of each one. I kept a tiny swatch of each one in my sketchbook with the name of the person who donated it.

I also made a video to document the fabrics. I’m still not over the cringe factor of watching this with all its many faux pas, but at least it’s a good record for posterity.