Ann Duncan-Gibbs doesn’t see many students while she works on campus. Tucked in the preservation department of the University Library, she spends her work hours taking care of brittle, decrepit books.
She guesses most don’t even know she exists. She hardly knows any student by name. Yet as she stood next to a table and 52 empty pieces of fabric hanging on an easel in Norris University Center’s Louis Room Wednesday afternoon, Duncan-Gibbs and students began to create a community, together.
“Would you like to make a block for the quilt?” she asked Medill sophomore Andrea Adame, who was strolling through the Louis Room at Norris University Center. “It’s easy.”
Adame and her friend Angie Sonderman stepped back. They just came to look at their the work of their boss, one of about 20 Northwestern students and staff members displaying their talent at the event, “Artists Behind the Desks.” Adame and Sonderman came to observe, not to participate.
“What do we have to do?” Adame asked.
Duncan-Gibbs pointed to scraps of yellow cotton fabric on the table. All they had to do was cut it into a leaf shape, she said. Then they would put their name on the leaf and Duncan-Gibbs would bind them to one of the empty pieces of cloth displayed on the easel. Duncan-Gibbs hoped the finished quilt would be put on display in the Women’s Center.
Sonderman’s smiled and her eyes widened. “Cool,” she said. The two friends started cutting out leaves.
Renee Redd, director of the Women’s Center, smiled from across the room. She said the office organized the event for people at NU to show each other their hidden creative talents.
“We’re always so work-obsessed in this country and our work can take over our lives,” Redd said. “We hope something like this could connect people together in a social aspect.”
Around the Louis Room, faculty and students gave glimpses into their hobbies outside of NU. A continuing stream of students walked in and looked at the detailed hand drawings of Debra Blade, assistant director of Norris. Gillian Nelson, a program assistant for the Judicial Affairs Office, puffed her cheeks into a French horn to play various classical selections.
Ellen Wright, a lecturer in the Writing Program, followed Nelson. Guitar in hand, she accompanied her husband John Wright, a professor emeritus in the Classics department, who played the banjo and sang folk songs.
After the couple finished their last number, Ellen Wright gave a message to the crowd of 20.
“Don’t leave without making a block on the quilt,” she said. “It’s a nice way to commemorate the event.”
So the crowd moved to Duncan-Gibbs table. As they cut out leaves, they conversed with Duncan-Gibbs. They talked about how much they respected quilts and how they had relatives who quilted. Duncan-Gibbs told them how she learned from her late grandmother, who taught her the art for a high school project when she was growing up in Iowa. Quilting, she said, is “as important to me as oxygen.”
By the time the event ended, almost all of the 52 pieces of fabric had their own leaves, and students knew Duncan-Gibbs existed. And she knew their names.
Reach Robert Samuels at [email protected].
