Linda Garcia is not a scientist.
But she finds inspiration in the scientists she works among every day in LSA’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and uses her creativity with quilting and Barbies to show it.
Her creations provide an outlet for her and bring joy for others during difficult times.
“With everything going on in the world and how individuals on campus can experience heightened levels of agitation, it can be heavy, so I need to create a positive, light environment,” said Garcia, an executive assistant in EEB.
She has been quilting for more than 10 years, picking up the activity while searching for a release from everyday stress. She belonged to a quilt group in South Lyon, where she lives, before it closed, and for the most part she created dozens of fairly muted color quilts out of reproduction patterns.
Then the pandemic hit.
“I was like, ‘I need to switch,’” she said, and began incorporating brighter colors into her quilts.
One of her most recent quilts took about six months and was displayed above her desk for colleagues and visitors to enjoy. Open Heart, Open Mind is a 7½-by-5½-foot colorful and detailed piece with visuals centered on grace, wisdom, courage, fury, hope, respect, peace, love, moxie and truth.
She started the quilt during the pandemic after discovering the pattern on a quilt blog. She used a new-to-her method, foundation paper piecing, where each section of the quilt is printed on paper, and fabric is sewn onto that section. Those sections are cut out and pieced together to form the quilt.
She chose a fitting fabric for the back of the quilt.
“The material is vibrant colors, and it’s bananas,” she said. “It was a crazy time in our lives, so it fit.”
While it hangs in the Biological Sciences Building, Garcia appreciates the opportunity to watch people’s reactions to it as they encounter the piece.
“There was a lot of, ‘oh, wow,’ and they’re looking at everything and seeing the detail and also the messages that are there,” she said. “There was a lot of contemplation over what they’re viewing and the messages that are there for them to interpret.”
She also recently completed a 5½-by-5½-foot quilt featuring Joan of Arc holding a vibrant sword and wearing a colorful suit of armor. The intensity in her eyes is intentional.
“The eyes have probably 20 pieces in this little area of fabric that’s sewn on, but you look at the eyes, and you’re like, ‘I’m being watched,’” she said. “It’s the little detailed things that go into it that are fun for me. I want to take my time and get it correct and add the right colors in the right places.”
While the Joan of Arc and Open Heart, Open Mind quilts are displayed on walls, Garcia urges recipients of her quilts to use them. When she was part of the South Lyon guild, she made quilts for servicemembers and infants so having them put to their intended use is important to her.
“Don’t hang it on the wall, put it on your bed, wrap a baby in it, wrap a child in it, just use it,” she said she tells people. “It’s something you can have forever. My daughter has one I made a long time ago and it’s tattered and torn. So use it, love it, keep warm, safe.”
Garcia is working on a piece she calls Women in Science featuring a woman holding a test tube. She said the inspiration came from professor and associate dean Patricia Wittkopp and research lab specialist Jillian Myers.
“I’m not a scientist by any means, I’m a creative person, so it comes from seeing these females in science and more and more of the younger students coming through,” she said. “Kind of where I’ve been going are portrait quilts.”
Wittkopp and Myers are not the only two co-workers to inspire Garcia’s work. While recovering at home from surgery in December, Garcia said, her daughter brought to her all of her old Barbie dolls.
Her creative juices kicked in quickly. She took one of the Barbies, made a lab coat with a Block M on it and gave her goggles, an Erlenmeyer flask, shoes and long pants. She set her up next to a standing desk with lab equipment, and upon returning to the office, Garcia brought the display with her.
“People were just out of this world about it,” she said.
Two co-workers then delivered to Garcia their daughters’ gently loved Barbies, giving her more than 70 dolls. She decided to make dioramas with some of the dolls as an homage to her co-workers.
The first was based on Jacob Allgeier, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and his work studying coral reefs in the Caribbean Sea. Allgeier simulates real reefs with cinder blocks, so Garcia ordered miniature cinder blocks and small fish to create a diorama.
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That stayed on her desk for a while before being replaced by another diorama featuring the likeness and work of research associate professor Liliana Cortés Ortiz, whose research centers on the study of primates, particularly howler monkeys.
Garcia’s husband ordered small plastic monkeys, and Garcia sewed a khaki-like short-sleeve shirt and shorts outfit for the Liliana Barbie, put binoculars around her neck and set her up in a forest-like setting among the frolicking monkeys.
Creating the outfit was a breeze for Garcia, who sewed costumes for her son and daughters’ performances during the 15 years they took part in dance and ballet.
Her efforts with the dioramas and the quilts celebrate the diversity of the research and researchers at EEB and also offer an inviting space for visitors to the building.
“The younger cohort who sees the dioramas on my desk say, ‘This is so cool,’” Garcia said. “They’re seeing that excitement about science.”
