The 2022 Alkek One Student Gallery installations are now up and ready for visitors to experience. These awesome projects demonstrate how digital technologies and creativity align. Five student projects were selected among the entries to this second year of the competition to have their work installed in the first-floor lobby of the Alkek Library. Library staff partnered with the Common Experience team and selected the winners that represented the 2021-22 theme of Compassion. The article below profiles one of the participants whose work was selected for the gallery.
Mallory Warrix, a Biology and Education senior, has a family tradition of making quilts as gifts for family and friends. This tradition spans both sides of her family. Over the winter break of 2022, Warrix was allowed into what she called one of the most exclusive places in Northern Indiana – her great grandmother’s sewing room. Warrix had an interest in sewing and quilting, but after this monumental experience, her interest grew even more.
As the first grandchild to show an interest in this time-honored tradition, Warrix’s great grandmother invited her to visit the “inner sanctum” of her sewing room. This visit provided an eye-opening view to her great grandmother’s museum of quilts, patterns, and fabric. She was amazed to learn her great grandmother still uses a foot-powered sewing machine and has enough quilts and projects stored away in cotton pillowcases for a small army.
Within all the fabric, Warrix found fabric patterns that drew her attention time and time again. Those patterns turned out to be reproductions of 1930’s feed sack prints,
“These prints came into being because feed manufacturers discovered that their customers were using oat, flour, and cornmeal sacks to make clothing during the Great Depression,” she said. “They began adding patterns to the sacks to give their customers something attractive with which to make clothing.”
Quilting is not just about making a functional item that is used every day, it is also a way to share meaningful gifts for those closest to you. A quilt can mean a lot for the person creating it as well as the person receiving it.
“Quilting and quilts, to me, are one of the ultimate expressions of love that exist,” said Warrix. “They also bring comfort to anyone who has received one. Quilting is a way to physically give someone a warm hug on a day that’s been long and dreary.”
Warrix has enjoyed learning about quilting from the matriarchs in her family and developing her skills over the past two years. She also enjoys taking something she knows how to do and mixing it up with something new. Her decision to make a quilt with 3D printing was her way to represent traditional human experiences through and with technology.
From the beginning, Warrix knew exactly what fabric patterns she wanted to work with and the pattern of the 3D printing that would best fit. She turned to the expert staff at the Alkek One MakerSpace for help learning how to use the 3D printer to make her vision a reality. Learning was easy and she didn’t even need to have any prior experience. She reached out to schedule a training with the MakerSpace manager and after training with the staff, she started working on her piece.
Warrix began with reproduction fabric patchwork blocks and added the 3D printed sawtooth stars to create a piece that not only reminds us of the past, but also the ingenuity of incorporating new technology.
This combination instills tradition and a look at the future to show where we have been and where we are headed and compassion, we all must share.
“I hope this piece highlights how technology can allow us to create entirely new experiences, relationships, and understandings,” Warrix said.
This article was contributed by Rebecca Ormsby, communications specialist in the Division of IT Marketing and Communications office. To learn more about the Division of Information Technology, visit the Division of Information Technology Blog.