Meet
Gerald Roy
by Jack Braunstein
Meet a gifted fabric designer, author, teacher and quiltmaker.
What happens when one member of a long-time business partnership passes away? Does the
public accept the surviving member on his or her own merits? Gerald Roy was confronted
with this situation when his partner, Paul Pilgrim, died from cancer three years ago. The
two were not only a creative team at the height of their careers, but they had also been
each other's best friend ever since Gerald was 21 and Paul, 19. "When you lose the
person closest to you, you lose a certain portion of your life," says Gerald.
"But because we had everything in common-the same friends, business associated and
careers-with Paul's death, the bottom fell out of everything for me."
The names Pilgrim and Roy have gained international recognition in the quilting world.
Paul and Gerald started working with quilts in the early 1960s when their interior
decorating business prompted them to purchase antique quilts for clients. Each having a
strong background in the fine arts, they also began collecting quilts solely for their
aesthetic value. Today, the Pilgrim/Roy collection is composed of 2,500 quilts and
quilt-related objects, including fabrics and all kinds of sewing tools.
Paul and Gerald were among the first board members of the Quilt Appraisal Program of
the American Quilter's Society (AQS). They helped establish guidelines for this
certification program, the only one of its kind. The duo also designed the interior of the
Museum of the American Quilter's Society (MAQS). They co-curated exhibits for MAQS and
co-authored The Log Cabin Returns to Kentucky (Collectors Books, 1992) and Quilts:
Old and New-A Similar View (AQS, 1993)-the catalogs of these two exhibits.
 Deep earth tones and bold textures
give Gerald Roy's "Churn Dash Variation" (72"
square) the look of an African design. Can you see the Nine Churn Dash blocks set on point
in the large center medallion? The quilt is pieced, appliquéd and quilted by hand.
Being more extroverted than Gerald, Paul often stood in the limelight as the spokesman
for them both. Suggesting that his more reserved nature might be attributed to his New
England roots, Gerald was content to stay in the background. He did, however, teach
workshops and write articles independently.
 Subtle gradations of color glide across
Gerald Roy's "Reflections One" (51" x
59"), a quilt composed entirely of fabrics he designed for P&B Textiles. He
worked on it at the bedside of Paul Pilgrim, who was terminally ill with cancer. Gerald
completed the quilt in October 1997, and Paul died the following month.
Jolted by Paul's untimely death, Gerald admits, "I didn't know if I had a future
of my own in the quilt world. I wasn't even sure if I had an interest in one." He
felt this way despite having promised Paul that he would continue working with quilts.
Widespread support from quilters provided Gerald with the motivation he needed to fulfill
that promise. "I received thousand of notes and letters from people all over the
world. It was remarkable! I don't think there's a finer group of people than quiltmakers
and others in the quilt industry."
Gerald went on to curate "Pilgrim's Progress," a memorial exhibit featuring
Paul's quilts. In his book Quilts by Paul D. Pilgrim: Blending the Old & the New (AQS,
1997), Gerald wrote a moving tribute to his late friend:
 Paul D. Pilgrim (1942-1996)
"Though we shared work space for many years, I had never really studied Paul's
quilts until I curated this June 1996 exhibit...He always worked privately on his quilts,
making them very much 'his own.' As we might have expected, Paul continues to give in
death as he did so unselfishly in life."
The friendship never dies in spirit. After "Pilgrim's Progress,"
Gerald donated 39 of Paul's exhibited quilts to MAQS. Gerald's present work is focused on
actualizing a project that he and Paul had intended to work on together. In part of the
following interview, the soft spoken Gerald describes the non-profit Pilgrim/Roy
Collection and Quilt Conservatory. Their donated quilts that comprise this collection will
be housed in a renovated barn in New Hampshire. Its completion will demonstrate how
Gerald, too, is giving "unselfishly in life."
 In "Dresden Garden" (85"
x 86"), Paul Pilgrim combined a purchased set of 1940 Dresden Plates with pieces of
Grandmother's Flower Garden from a damaged 1940s quilt top. By appliquéing them on dark
blue fabric instead of traditional muslin, Paul created a vibrant quilt with sharp
contrast. Photos courtesy of AQS
QT: You first entered the quilt world by dealing in and collecting
quilts. What motivated you and Paul to start making them?
Gerald Roy: Our background as trained artists and teachers brought us
to the quilt field. Paul was a full-time art teacher in a public school while I taught for
the Cultural Arts Department of the City of Oakland, California. I eventually worked my
way up to senior director but was no longer in the classroom. Supervising wasn't very
rewarding for me, so I resigned when I started selling my oil paintings in galleries.
Tired of being poor, we opened Pilgrim/Roy Antiques & Interiors in San Francisco
and Oakland. Studying so many antique quilts inspired us to try our hands at making
quilts. Today, I piece more than I paint-so much more that I don't really consider myself
a painter. I like piecing because it's a lot cleaner and more mobile. You can take it
wherever you go.
QT: Do you exhibit your quilts at shows?
Gerald Roy: I primarily make quilts for my own enjoyment. However, I
do make some quilts for certain occasions, such as when we launched the Pilgrim/Roy
Challenge to benefit MAQS. I also make quilts to display lines of fabric I've designed.
QT: Your earlier fabric lines were either reproductions or your
adaptations of antique fabrics, while your last two lines are very contemporary. Do your
quilts reflect this broad of a range?
Gerald Roy: My work is traditional in technique but not in appearance.
By this I mean I work with a repetitive, geometric look format-the way quilts have always
been made. For the most part, I do hand appliqué and machine piecing. My quilts are
constructed in a free-form appliqué style. Because I create each block as I go, no two
blocks are alike. The blocks are then arranged in an asymmetrical composition determined
by the way they interact with one another. I create subtle color changes rather than a lot
of contrast. Similarly, I create fabrics using my own sense of design and color so I can
use them in my quilts.
QT: Your Color Spectrum fabric line contains solid-color fabrics
and your New Basic fabric line has subtle prints on richly colored backgrounds. What is
the concept unifying these lines produced by P&B Textiles?
Gerald Roy: I've always preferred solids but used to seek fabrics from
many manufacturers to obtain the subtleties and colors that I needed. When I was studying
fine arts at Worcester Art Museum School in Worcester, Massachusetts, Josef Albers was the
dean of the School of Art and Architecture at nearby Yale University. He worked with pure
hues, carefully mixing them with white and complements to make hues, tints and shades that
didn't get muddy. These "true colors" were commercially reproduced and called
Color Aid Papers. These papers were made for Josef Albers' course called Interaction of
Color, and they are still used in the art field today.
Like Josef Albers, I've made a fabric line using the 12 primary, secondary and
intermediate colors to give quilters 103 fabrics in a clear palette of solid colors. Color
Spectrum has been a very popular line of fabrics. The New Basics line is composed of
tone-on-tone print fabrics directly applied to the Color Spectrum solids.
I don't work with recognizable imagery either in my fabrics or in my quilts. Rather
than getting involved with the prints, I want the viewer to get involved with the overall
statement of the quilt. This is why I don't name some of my quilts. I want the viewer to
see them afresh without my suggesting what they mean.
QT: As a teacher, what do you want your students to accomplish and
how do you help them achieve their goals?
Gerald Roy: I firmly believe that if given the opportunity, each
quilter can acquire the skills to express his or herself in a way that's as unique as
their handwriting. As a teacher, I find it important to present an experience that helps
students discover and express their own "handwriting"-or, better said, their
unique mark or signature. I try to get my students to stop copying or emulating what
they've seen. For me, color is the most important tool. Most people believe color is
difficult because they think it's based on their emotions, but I teach color as a science
and missing colors as a mathematical formula. I simplify color theory so that students see
the logical application and are no longer intimidated. Then, they gain skills through
simple assignments and develop a way of working with color that isn't based on trial and
error. Color becomes a tool for self-expression rather than being limited to mere
decoration.
QT: The element of color certainly translates from painting into
quiltmaking, but how about other elements of design, particularly composition?
Gerald Roy: Most people can successfully participate in designing with
symmetry because it doesn't require balancing uneven weights. Square blocks tend to want
to be handled symmetrically. Quilts that aren't square usually just have another row of
blocks added. However, the rectangle wants to be divided in asymmetrical ways. That's why
most paintings are rectangular than square. I teach a class specifically for those who
want to learn to make asymmetrical designs.
The individual elements that I work with determine the shape of each quilt. I usually
don't have a preconceived idea of what one of my quilts will look like. I prefer to
develop the design while it's in progress. Sometimes I design on a flannel wall, and other
times I work like Jackson Pollack, the abstract expressionist painter. He laid the canvas
on the floor so he could paint from all four sides. I work this way so that there is no
top or bottom to my quilt. Sometimes it's difficult for me to decide which side the sleeve
will be on. I have sewn sleeves on all four sides so viewers can decide how to hang a
quilt and from which side they want to look at it.
QT: You've had a lot of experience documenting quilts. Do you
intend to work on similar tasks in the future?
Gerald Roy: "Gatherings" was a four-year project that
involved the compilation of data from all the state quilt documentation projects in this
country up to February 1995. Working on "Gatherings" gave me the background and
expertise that I will need to help with some of the current state projects in New England.
QT: Please share more about the quilt conservatory to which you've
generously donated your quilt collection.
Gerald Roy: Last summer I sold a Victorian house that Paul and I had
renovated in Oakland, California. In July, I moved to New Hampshire, closer to where much
of my family still lives. Using some of the proceeds from the sale of the house and other
items, I started the Pilgrim/Roy Quilt Conservatory, a non-profit corporation. As well as
buying and selling quilts, Paul and I carefully set aside pieces-quilts or quilt-related
items-that were of particular interest. We focused on gathering quilt that reveal the
artistic expression of individuals throughout history. The collection contains quilts that
date from the last quarter of the 18th century to the 1990s. It's not really strong on the
contemporary side, but it shows the continuum of quiltmaking from a historical
perspective.
During the last year of Paul's life, he and I often talked about what was going to
happen to the collection. We felt it was important to keep the examples in it together
because of how each piece relates to one another as a unit. Yet, there really isn't any
guarantee that a collection will stay together when it's donated. So the conservatory was
something he and I wanted to establish in order to keep all the works together.
The conservatory will be my home and studio. It will also house the collection, which
will be made available for viewing by appointment. I bought a 1760s two-level barn that
was disassembled in Farmington, New Hampshire, and reassembled on a 12-acre site in
Warner, new Hampshire. I'm adding a wing at each end-one for a residence and the other for
preparation space and offices for the conservatory.
There are many quilters who, like me, are excited about this project and are willing to
volunteer their time and expertise. Thanks to them, although it may seem as if I'm alone,
I'm really part of a wonderful community.
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