Jean's First Quilt
I lost my friend, my first teacher and my creative mentor last week. An amazingly creative and inspiring woman, Jean Ray Laury died March 2, 2011, just 3 weeks shy of her 83rd birthday. I have sung Jean’s praises many times over the years. She was my first quilting teacher, with her 1970 book, Quilts and Coverlets: A Contemporary Approach. Jean was my first mentor, guiding me on how to combine family andmy creative passions with her book, The Creative Woman’s Getting-It-All-Together at Home Handbook
In 1993 she wrote my other bible, Imagery on Fabric
Sandy Sapienza, Lesley Riley, Jean Ray Laury, Christine Adams
On the suggestion of another dear friend, Christine Adams, we invited Jean to participate in the Women of Influence collaboration that was subsequently profiled in Quilting Arts (Summer 2004) and Cloth Paper Scissors (Premier issue) magazines. Jean arranged for the project to be shown at the Fresno Art Museum which led to another west coast trip that culminated with dinner at Jean’s, a home that centered around her studio. Jean walked the talk. She was the creative woman who got it all together at home and then some.
Jean with 2 of the 5 panels
Jean made her first quilt in 1956 as part of her Masters degree at Stanford. She was a key figure in the renaissance of quilting nationwide the during 1970s and 1980s. Her work has been exhibited in the U.S.and overseas, including the International Quilt Festival, Houston installation in 1999 called “America’s 100 Best Quilts of the 20th Century”. Her brilliance and lifelong love of learning and teaching inspired me, hell, it still inspires me. Her most recent fiber project took 2-1/2 years to complete – five 9-foot long banners for the new San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust headquarters which opened in 2009. When I talked with her last year, she was busy with her latest passion, writing a novel. I know Jean was creating up to the very end. Still setting an example. Thank you, Jean, for showing me the way. Her memory will live on in all the creative lives she taught, touched and inspired.
I loved Jean Ray Laury. She had a fantastic speaking voice and wonderful things to say with the greatest sense of humor of anyone I ever knew. I have looked up to her all my quilting life. I couldn’t believe my luck when I got to sit next to her at a banquet many years ago where she was the keynote speaker. She was always my friend after that. She made me feel I was special to her, like she really cared what I thought and truly wanted to know what I was up to when our paths crossed.
I still have the “magic bean” she gave everyone during a lecture one time, a little red bean with dots of paint to form a flower, a talisman to remind us of our creativity. I’ll bet she painted every one of them herself.
She stayed in my home the year NQA met in Davenport, Iowa, and met my three daughters. She flew to Des Moines and we got to drive over to the river together. In our home, she was so nice to my girls. They all loved art and they could see immediately she was a true artist and a kindred spirit.
Jean’s the one who told us, “If you leave your sewing machine up for 48 hours in a room, it’s a studio.” She was a consummate writer. I got to read a draft of the murder mystery she was working on in recent years.
Once I was with a friend who admitted to Jean she was getting a divorce. Instead of saying “I’m so sorry,” like everyone else, Jean said, “That’s terrific!” She knew the truth of things–if you were divorcing things were bad, and now they could get better.
I’m lucky I attended AQSG in San Jose and heard her speak one more time. I thought she was 75. She was hip and artistic 24/7.
I loved, loved, loved Jean Ray. I’m crying while I write this. If we could all just be more like Jean. . . She was the best.
Thank you for the opportunity to commiserate and for the photos of the one-of-a-kind Jean Ray Laury in her crisp blouse with the collar turned up and those red glasses.
Marianne
What sad news. The books that inspired you did the same for me. I judged with her at Paducah years ago and was struck by both her wisdom and her kindness. What a creative lady and what a loss to us all – even those who didn’t know her.
Thank you for such an informative newsletter…….have followed her, read her books for years, since I started quilting in ’70. Thank you.
It is always much harder to believe that a death has occured when a highly energetic, creative person passes. The fact that we are no longer able to hear them speak or to see their latest creative work seems unimagineable. I didn’t meet Jean in person until July 2004 but I had corresponded with her since 1981 from the East Coast briefly from time to time. My first impression of Jean as the incredibly generous and gracious person she was was thru that correspondence. When I finally met her in person and heard her lecture, I was overwhelmed at how much of her sense of humor I had missed out on by not taking the time to travel to her lectures sooner. I could learn by buying her books, true. But nothing compared to meeting her face to face and experiencing her spirit and energy in person. She is sorely missed. I am so grateful I was able to see her one more time at the AQSG seminar in San Jose in the fall of 2009. I have added another tribute to Jean here
http://thequiltershalloffame.blogspot.com/2011/03/passing-of-jean-ray-laury.html
Karen Alexander
Past President. The Quilters Hall of Fame
Lesley I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m sorry too that the creative community has lost a trail blazer and mentor. Know that now she is creating much bigger quilts on a universal scale! Have a lovely and peaceful week.
OMG!!!!!! i am so bummed! years ago jean and her husband were visiting on kauai, i ran into her and we put a two day printing class together. it was an eye opening experience for all 20 of us in attendance. her husband, ever the unabashed flirt…how she put up with him i always found amazing…
i have many of her books and use them for reference. she turned me onto the thermofax which i immediately purchased from her friend, her company name eludes me now, but i paid less than $400 for it and a roll of film about $30. i am totally shocked how much all this stuff costs now.
as a teacher she was so giving. our group had many fine artist but there were so many light bulb moments for so many of us on that day. she touched many in her life.
i have to absorb this, i know she was almost 83 but such a youthful outgoing creative 83. she will be sorely missed by all who knew and loved her.
Jean’s book, “The Creative Woman’s Getting-It-All-Together at Home Handbook,” has been a major influence on my life and work, too. We have lost a real treasure. I am sure that she will continue to influence many artists through the works and records she left behind, including those at the Alliance for American Quilts (http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/).
Thank you for posting this memorial to her and letting the rest of us know of her passing.
I became aware of Jean Ray Laury thru a magazine (long out of print) I think called Needle and Thread. Anyway, she and Robbie Fanning were both comumnists – though I could be wrong. In any case, because of that, I have been trying for years (without success) to obtain a copy of her book The Creative Woman’s Getting-It-All-Together at Home Handbook.
I’m so glad to have read your wonderful tribute to her. Thanks for letting us know of her passing.
Jean Ray Laury was certainly one of my inspirations, too. Her book on Imagery on Fabric is definately influential and has continued to be a source of information even though many others have written on similar topics. Thanks for this great memorial to her.
I live in North Wales and one of Jean’s books was an early acquisistion in my quilting life. It saved me being gobbled up by the traditionalists. I am sure there are many other people who could say this.
Many years ago I signed up for a Color Theory class at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival (in Williamsburg at that time). I had no idea what I was getting into, had no idea who was teaching it and couldn’t figure out how a class on color could fill a whole day. I took the class as a whim. That class was the major transformational point in my creative life. I left the class brain tired, energized and wishing I had 5 more days of classes with the phenomenal teacher, Jean Ray Laury. I still didn’t really know who she was until I came home and did some research. Then I bought all of her books. She gave me my love of color study and I am grateful to her every day.