Re-claiming Fragment by Joyful Fragment
Artist Laura Petrovich-Cheney stakes a claim for resilience and hope
I have spent countless hours contemplating the tiny, perfect stitches made by my great grandmother’s hands to create the quilt that has alternately hung on my wall or been on my bed for most of my life. It’s a fancy quilt, made with store-bought polished cotton and fashioned into a special and uncommon pattern, unlike the many, many other quilts she made from scraps.
I imagine her rooted life in a tiny, south Georgia town on the Alabama border and consider the fact of a quilt that follows me around the planet, an unlikely constant in an otherwise hard-to-pin-down life. Something wildly important and fundamental about this pairing eludes me still, but I never feel less compelled to try to make sense of these continuities and divergences as part of a meaningful whole. The key, I think, must be in the stitches.
With parallel logic, the key to Laura Petrovich-Cheney’s “quilts,” must be in the grain, the salvage, the tone and hue of loss, but that’s not how I experience them. Instead, I relish the reshaping of all these things into something vibrant and alive today. I feel joy and with it, possibility and potential. Perhaps, this too, is the secret to my great grandmother’s quilt. Perhaps, all those precise stitches, that precious store-bought fabric, and this carefully designed anomaly create a thread of life and living. Perhaps it’s not so complicated. She’s sending me joy.
We can all use a big helping of joy these days. It’s a trying time. Read on and feast!
Big love, Ashley
P.S. And, be sure to check out Laura’s Special Sauce here.
In 2013, I learned how quickly home and community can be destroyed. Hurricane Sandy devastated both my home and my parents’ along the New Jersey coast. In its aftermath, once-organized neighborhoods were reduced to rubble, with clapboard siding, floorboards, and window frames scattered in chaotic piles. Wood’s chipped paint, nail holes, and worn grain revealed traces of past lives and carried stories in faded colors.
While my family worked to rebuild, my father died suddenly of heart failure, and just six months later, my mother passed away. Surviving environmental disaster and profound personal loss compelled me to infuse messages of hope into my work. The act of making with my hands became both consolation and grounding force.
Though my mother rejected domestic labor and handicraft, I was drawn to the resilience of pioneer women—both real and imagined—who crafted quilts from scraps for warmth and survival. Their resourcefulness shapes my artistic vision, inspiring me to create from remnants of the past.
At the same time, I resist rigid gender roles and societal expectations embedded in traditional women’s work. Perhaps this tension compels me to create wood quilts—challenging stereotypes by merging the softness of quilting with the strength and physicality of woodworking.
Repetition serves as metaphor for the proliferation of climate disasters—hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and floods, while the traditional double wedding ring quilt pattern in Devotion speaks to interconnectedness—to each other and to the flora and fauna that share our planet. Geometric structures echo those found in nature and reinforce my fascination with pattern and design.
Recently, I have been studying to become certified Master Gardener. I want to take personal responsibility for protecting the planet—and to better understand pollinator-friendly plants for my own beekeeping. Studying plant life has revealed the intricate geometric structures inherent in flowers, and it’s inspiring my current work—kaleidoscope-like quilts that resemble flowers.
Objects hold memory and bear the marks of their previous lives, and I always leave the materials I salvage as I find them, never altering texture or hue.
I want the domestic spaces and personal histories these objects came from to form the foundation for work that reflects intertwined narratives of recovery in the face of ongoing climate crisis. Working with these discarded materials, I’m able to explore resilience, amplify the power of second chances, and celebrate the abundant, unexpected, and complex joys of being alive.—Laura Petrovich-Cheney
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