Bill Willie’s Factotum Whirligig quilt top, Virginia Jean Cox Mitchell

Exhibition Label: "Personal Geometry: Quilts by Yoshiko Jinzenji and Virginia Jean Cox Mitchell," Feb-2014, Susan Earle and Cassandra Mesick This quilt top celebrates the life and many activities of the artist’s husband Bill, from birth through the time it was made in the 1990s. It is dense with narrative, inscriptions, personal milestones, and more, all lovingly portrayed in amazing detail. Bill is shown riding his bicycle and making and doing many things, symbolized by whirligigs and other twirling objects, in motion like Bill always is. The oil rig in the center is a reference to his beloved step-grandfather, who worked in Oilton, Oklahoma. A factotum is one who engages in many diverse activities, like Bill. He and the artist were married in 1954 and lived for two years at Pt. Cabrillo Lighthouse in Mendocino, California, before returning to Lawrence for Bill to finish his studies at KU. He then served as a librarian in Special Collections at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library for nearly thirty years. The artist wrote descriptions of everything contained in this tribute, which is nearly a book in itself.