By Gina Malone
When she was an elementary school teacher, Annie Griffey, of Marshall, learned to trust children with the responsibility of creating—even with projects that might, at first consideration, seem too complicated for them. In the late 1990s, she went to England during a Fulbright teacher exchange and, for a year, taught young children there. “I learned to teach art to children that year,” she says. “In England, they have very specific teaching procedures and routines and when they got to me—these were four- and five-year-olds—they could already mix secondary colors and do landscapes and portraits. At the time I thought, this is amazing! How do these kids do this? It just blew my mind.”
Mara’s quilt. Annie Griffey and Mara Burgess, artists
When she came back to the US, she introduced quilting to her fourth-graders. From scrap fabric, each child had to create a quilt square. “They had to sew it themselves,” Griffey says. “They had to design it, cut it, everything, themselves. Before I went to England, I didn’t know that children were actually capable of doing this kind of thing.”
She and her husband Jack each have two children from their first marriages. When the grandchildren began to be born, Griffey decided that she wanted to create something for—and with—each of them when they were between the ages of 10 and 12. The first quilt was for Gracie, now 22, who wanted a purple quilt. By the time Griffey began a quilt for Ava, Gracie’s sister, she had the idea of using art that Ava, now 20 and in college, created. That quilt proved to be a learning experience in which Griffey worked with Spoonflower, an online company that turned Ava’s artwork into custom cloth squares. Griffey then hand-sewed the quilt. “It is such a good memory and keepsake that reminds me of my love for creating things as well as my family, considering Annie and I live so far apart,” Ava says. “Unfortunately, I do not have very much free time to create art now, but things like my quilt and my old artwork always remind me that art and creativity will always be a big part of me.”
Ava’s quilt. Annie Griffey and Ava Somers, artists
The third quilt was for Banks, now 15, whose design incorporated Allied Army flags he painted. Griffey would have the children come to stay and she would pull out the paints and crayons. Banks’ sister Mara just turned 13 and hers is the latest quilt that Griffey finished. It includes a design that showcases Mara’s prolific store of artwork, including paintings of “Chelsea” (the alter ego of her young years who could do all the things
Mara was not allowed to do), as well as abstracts and self-portraits in the styles of Picasso and Dali. “The quilt has my drawings from the first 11 years of my life,” Mara says. “It means a lot to be able to go back and see the art I made when I was younger.”
With Spoonflower, Griffey was able to make changes such as intensifying or toning down colors, and mirror-imaging artwork. “All of this,” she says, “I did with my phone. It’s so easy to do. Anybody could do what I did.” Once she had the design worked out, then the cloth in hand, she took Mara’s quilt pieces to 5 Little Monkeys, a quilt shop in Weaverville, to have it professionally sewn.
Seeing what can be created from original art, her friend Katie Wills, of Asheville, is eager to have Griffey help her and her son, Jesse, create a treasured quilt. “Jesse is a 43-year-old man who is nonverbal and autistic,” Wills says. “We like to think he has found his voice through his paintings. He paints with intention and joy. We are honored and grateful to work with Ann on this project and to put his art into another medium.”
With four behind her, Griffey has two more “grandchild quilts” on the books—ones for Lennox, 12, and Luca, 7. The idea behind the quilts, Griffey says, is to have something that reflects each of their childhoods. “It’s the children’s art that’s important,” she says. “I wish I had known all that years ago about kids and how to facilitate their making art. In America, we wait for kids to demonstrate their talent before we say ‘you’re worthy of taking this art class’, whereas all of us have the capability of making art.”
Learn more about 5 Little Monkeys Quilt & Sew at FiveMonkeyQuilts.com.
