21

Catherine Aiello

Did you have previous associations with this number before making this work?

I have sort of number "preferences" I guess you could call them. I'm more drawn to certain numbers, usually as dates or ages, than others. Like I like numbers that end in 8, I like multiples of seven, I like 29 and 3. Twenty One is ok, not my favorite, not the worst. I thought about 21 as an age and what it means in our culture to turn 21, but ultimately I wasn't interested in making something around that.

What inspired you to make this piece?
I ended up thinking about 21 as a measure of time, as 21 days being three weeks. This year has been so strange in terms of the passage of time. I had fun piecing the squares together in ways that felt like visualizations of how the passage of time can feel. Sometimes it's very regular and predictable, other days fly by or seem to last
forever.


Aside from a response to this number, what does the work say to you now that you've made it?
My partner and I make quilts for friends' babies- usually I piece the design and she hand quilts it. This year has been a pretty productive one on the quilt front with less travel and socializing than normal for us, but people keep having babies! This will ultimately probably become a quilt top for a friend whose baby was born in the summer. I'm not a parent, but from talking to friends and family with kids it seems like caring for and raising a child really alters your relationship to time and the way the days pass.