Smart Humans: Jenni Grover
Photo by Alix Kramer
I'd like to introduce you to Jenni Grover.
Jenni is a wellness coach for creative folks, and a wonderful quilter. I just love her generous spirit and compassionate approach to creativity.
I first connected with Jenni through the social networks. I came across one of her articles about quilting and physical wellness, and I was like, “Holy crap, she wrote this just for me!” You can read more of her articles for SuzyQuilts here, and learn about her coaching services on her website.
I highly recommend following her on Instagram and LinkedIn, and reading her book ChronicBabe 101: How to Craft an Incredible Life Beyond Illness.
Jenni was gracious enough to answer some interview questions for me. Enjoy!
What's your favorite hour of the day, day of the week, or season of the year?
My favorite hour of the day is morning, around 7:30am, when I've been awake for a couple of hours and done my yoga and had breakfast. There's a moment then when I feel strong and ready for the day, and I love that feeling!
My favorite day of the week is probably Friday. I love the anticipation of a weekend spent doing fun things! As a self-employed person who works from home, it's critical that I set boundaries for work and not-work.
My favorite season, hands down, is summer. I'm obsessed with gardening -- I have a big organic veggie and herb garden in our backyard, and I've planted hundreds of native perennial flowering plants all around our house. Summer is when it all explodes and it's beautiful. I adore sharing food and flowers that I've grown because it feels so magical, and helps me connect with my community. And I love making exuberant bouquets to give people all summer!
What do you empower people (including yourself) to do?
Through my work, I empower people to learn about themselves in deep and unusual ways. The result is that they understand better how to take care of themselves, to advocate and work for change. My clients feel empowered to make big life changes and experiment more.
Through the way I live, which is driven by truth, I empower myself to honor my past and step into a healthier present and future. I come from a family that skews truth, and growing up I always knew that was unhealthy. Today, I feel able to recognize my reality, which leads me to accept it and then take positive action.
I've come to this path through a few steps:
1. Becoming a journalist at age 16 and continuing to do that work even today, which is all about truth-seeking. And about connecting with others.
2. Through 25 years of learning to live with multiple chronic illnesses. That process required me to accept some really hard things, and to get creative with how I live.
3. By exploring trauma therapy in recent years, I've been able to shed a lot of physical damage that came from my childhood and early adulthood. That has changed my mental and physical health in huge, wonderful ways!
So as I do this work and take these actions, I'm learning more and more how to be my own best advocate. And by being vulnerable and sharing my experiences, I'm empowering other people to do self-advocacy work as well.
Photo by Alix Kramer
When people come to you for help, what's the number one question you hear?
Almost all of my coaching clients come to me with a desire for a more fulfilling creative life. They want to know: How do I get comfortable with experimentation? How do I get courageous about showing my work? How do I make more time for my creative pursuits? How do I manage health issues so I'm more able to follow creative passions?
What they're usually really asking is: How do I learn to believe in myself?
...Because when you believe in yourself deeply, you get braver about being "weird." You stop caring what others think. It becomes automatic to prioritize your art. You will feel comfortable making changes that empower you to be more creative.
So while I don't usually tell people they can come to me to learn how to believe in themselves again, maybe I should -- because that's the real thing they want and need help with. :)
What's something that people get wrong about you or your work?
A lot of people think a coach is someone who is just your cheerleader, or someone who gives you advice or directions to follow.
But I'm a wellness coach for makers! Wellness needs are as diverse as humans are, so I don't have a program of advice or a list of directions I can give out. And makers come in all shapes and sizes, too.
So my coaching is highly personalized. I guide each client through a learning process so they can uncover their true needs. Then together we come up with strategies that help them make lasting inner and outer change.
And yes, I'll be their cheerleader! But I'll also be so much more.
If you knew you'd be wildly successful, what would you try today?
I would be a painter! I took painting lessons as a kid but wow, I was not good at it. But I love the feel of a paint-filled brush gliding across a canvas. I would love to get messy and splash paint around and make a masterpiece.
Maybe that means it's time for me to try painting again?!
Photo by Alix Kramer
What's something you love to make?
I love to make quilts! I love every step, from choosing a pattern to gathering fabrics to assembling blocks to quilting it and hand-sewing on a binding. I love every step. (Okay, I actually hate basting a quilt. But that's a short step!)
Quilts have become so much more to me than just fancy blankets. They're a source of connection with others. They've inspired periods of service (I was president of the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild for a time, and I'm about to rejoin the board.) They are a delight for my senses. They are challenges to be worked through, problems to be solved. They make amazing gifts that the recipients treasure. They give my home life and comfort. And they're packed with memory and history!
I'll be making quilts for the rest of my life.
Where should we go to learn more about you?
Head to coachjennigrover.com to learn more about how my coaching works. Connect with me on Instagram for education and silliness. And check out my series of self-care articles for makers at SuzyQuilts.com.
Jenni, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Want to be interviewed for my Smart Humans series?
Send some information about you and your work to sarah@sarahatlee.com.
Don't Stop Me Now
Don't Stop Me Now
Reclaimed garments, vintage sheets, and other fabrics, machine pieced and quilted.
48"h x 38"w, 2022.
$800 Click here to purchase.
I've learned so much from Sherri Lynn Wood. She's a remarkable artist and educator. I took my first workshop with her at QuiltCon 2015, which was also my first QuiltCon. I signed up kind of late, but there were slots left in her "Quilting From a Score" workshop. Her book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters, was so new that I don't think they were even for sale at the show.
If you're familiar with her book, the workshop she taught that year was the Floating Squares score.
I came away changed. I figured out that I was an improv quilter, but I didn't know that quilting could be so... effortless.
Long story short, when Wood announced her spring 2022 lineup of workshops, I decided...
This was a beautiful, fertile creative period for me. A highlight of the workshop series was the guest appearance by Gees Bend quilter Mary Margaret Pettway.
Like, I can't even.
Here's a little tip: If you are a quilter in the twenty first century, you owe a debt to the quilters of Gees Bend. You can pay something toward that debt right here. Learn more about the quilters of Gee's Bend at the Souls Grown Deep Foundation website.
Ms. Pettway inspired this quilt.
With Don't Stop Me Now, I challenged myself to work in an improvisational style, with mostly striped fabric. Here's my maximalist tendency coming through: All Stripes All The Time.
What's In a Name?
I title all my work. Usually, the title comes to me mid-construction. I was so filled with energy at learning from Ms. Pettway, plus the infusion of color and pattern in the dead of winter, that my exuberance could only be expressed in the immortal words of Freddie Mercury.*
Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time
I feel alive
And the world, I'll turn it inside out, yeah
I'm floating around in ecstasy
So (Don't stop me now)
(Don't stop me)
'Cause I'm having a good time
Having a good time
I'm a shooting star, leaping through the sky like a tiger
Defying the laws of gravity
I'm a racing car, passing by like Lady Godiva
I'm gonna go, go, go, there's no stopping me
I'm burning through the sky, yeah
Two hundred degrees, that's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit
I'm travelling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic man outta you
(Don't stop me now)
I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball
(Don't stop me now)
If you wanna have a good time, just give me a call
(Don't stop me now)
'Cause I'm having a good time
(Don't stop me now)
Yes, I'm having a good time
I don't wanna stop at all, yeah
I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars on a collision course
I am a satellite, I'm out of control
I'm a sex machine, ready to reload like an atom bomb
About to oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, explode
I'm burning through the sky, yeah
Two hundred degrees, that's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit
I'm travelling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic woman of you
(Don't stop me, don't stop me, don't stop me)
Hey, hey, hey
(Don't stop me, don't stop me, ooh, ooh, ooh)
I like it
(Don't stop me, don't stop me)
Have a good time, good time
(Don't stop me, don't stop me) Woah
Let loose, honey, all right
Oh, I'm burning through the sky, yeah
Two hundred degrees, that's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit (Hey)
Travelling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic man outta you (Hey, hey)
(Don't stop me now)
I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball
(Don't stop me now)
If you wanna have a good time, just give me a call (Ooh, alright)
(Don't stop me now)
'Cause I'm having a good time (Hey, hey)
(Don't stop me now)
Yes, I'm having a good time
I don't wanna stop at all
Lyrics from Don't Stop Me Now, 1978, written by Freddie Mercury and performed by Queen.
* To experience this song in its finest postmodern format, I recommend this Google Doodle.
Don’t Stop Me Now Could Be Yours!
Visit the store page to purchase this quilt.
Interested in ordering a custom quilt to your specifications? Let’s do it! Visit the Commissions page to see sizes and prices, and book your Quilt Customization Session today!
It's About Surrender.
"To be is to be perceived. And so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go on apportioning themselves throughout all time." Sonmi451 / Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (Knees and Toes)
Do you do yoga? I practice sometimes. I first tried it in college (where my $cholar$hip paid for classes!). My favorite asana has always been the forward fold.
"Uttanasana" translates roughly to "intense stretch pose," but for me, it's about surrender. I surrender to gravity. I surrender to the reality of my body that day. I surrender the desire to make a perfect shape, surrender to imperfection. I surrender my thinking mind to my physical senses. To stillness, non-doing. And I love the journey, from all-the-way-up-there to all-the-way-down-here.
What have you surrendered lately?
A Soft Place To Land
A Soft Place To Land. Cotton fabrics, 13x15.5 inches
Machine pieced and quilted with additional hand quilting
$368 Update: This piece has gone to a loving home.
This is a small wall-hanging quilt I recently made, in response to a thought-work exercise with Kyla Mitsunaga, aka the Asian Auntie You Didn't Know You Needed. I'll tell the whole story another time, but this piece is about surrender.
I surrendered to some scary thoughts, deeply embedded in my subconscious. I let them come to the surface, which felt like momentary freefall. With Kyla's help, I gave them a safe, soft place to land. This experience is already giving rise to a new series. A Soft Place To Land is the first iteration.
The Cutter
I have a quilt on my bed that's about a hundred years old. This is useful for several reasons.
1. It's warm. People sometimes ask me why the quilts they remember from childhood are warmer/heavier/cozier than quilts today. That may be partly nostalgia, but wool and cotton battings were much more common in previous decades. Now quilt battings are usually polyester or a cotton/poly blend.
2. It's beautiful. We musn't dismiss the utility of beauty.
3. This quilt was made with a technique unusual for the time. My friend Martha (a quilt collector who sold me this piece) told me that the quilting is freemotion, but it was done on a treadle machine. Now, if you're a quilter, your eyebrows are likely raised. Freemotion quilting is how you make loop-de-loops and pretty much any design besides straight lines. This is easy with a longarm quilting machine, and with some domestic machines (depending on the quilt's size), but I struggle to imagine getting this done on a treadle, especially considering the consistency of the stitches. Wowza.
[Why isn't this quilt being kept under archival conditions? Because some of it looks like this:
And some of it looks like this:
In the industry, this is called a "cutter."]
4. My favorite thing about this quilt: It has a history. And - this is crucial - I don't know what that history is. I only know what's happened since I saw the quilt at Martha's garage sale. Previous chapters are closed to me.
Here's why that matters.
Did you read the book or see the movie Cloud Atlas? The narrative is structured around big time jumps and seemingly unrelated characters. But it's all connected. Because no one knows what part of your life is going to go on existing after you're gone. You could be a lawmaker or a tycoon or a research scientist and your contributions to future generations might be obvious. But most of us don't know what our legacy will be. It's out of our control. We have to surrender.
Creators are often preoccupied with the idea of legacy. We are surrounded by messages telling us who to be, how to be, how to ensure our efforts make an "impact" in an atmosphere of noise. It's a lot of pressure. By choosing to acknowledge our very limited control, we can find freedom.
I don't know who made the quilt on my bed. There's no label on it. (FYI: Label your quilts!!) The maker was probably a woman. So I'll tell her now: Dear Ms. Quilter, Somehow your quilt made it into my hands, and I appreciate what you created. Thank you.
Everything Sucks, So... issue #8!
It's a good time to order the latest issue of the ESS zine. Why? Because issue #8 (Add It Up, aka By The Numbers) is the last one. For now, anyway. I started this zine as a pananoramadingdong project and I feel that it has served its purpose. Issue #8 is available now in my web store. Back issues of ESS (both paper and digital editions) will remain available as long as y'all keep buying them, whether that's through my website or in OKC at DNA Galleries or Literati Press Bookstore. Thank you for coming with me on this journey.
Thanks for reading!
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The Thing You Just Knew You Could Do
Image: Sarah drawn by Sarah's Mom, circa 1984
Remember when you were a kid and when you saw someone do something, you thought, “I can do that, too?” And then you just DID it, in your kid way? That hopefully didn’t result in serious injury? :) What was that thing for you?
I remember an episode of Reading Rainbow that showed a person playing a Koto. (I’ve already gone down the Youtube hole looking for this episode, I think it’s s05 e04, “The Paper Crane.” Here's a different video example.) I gathered up an empty shoebox, paper cups, and rubber bands. I wrapped the rubber bands around the shoebox, using the paper cups as bridges. Then I put paper clips on my fingertips and plucked away at my instrument. And then it was time for dinner.
I haven’t always been that confident. But as an improvisational quilter, I keep that YES sign turned on. I learned to apply the “Yes, and” mentality to quilting from Sherri Lynn Wood. If that sounds familiar, it’s a principle of improv theater as well. In my studio, the conversation is usually, “What if I did ____?” followed by “YES. DO IT.”
Try saying "Yes, and..." to something today.
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You can also find me at Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitch.
Then Again Podcast Links
Many many warm fuzzy thanks to the folks at the Northeast Georgia History Center for having me on their podcast, Then Again! Episode 84 is called Patchworks of the Past & Present. You can find this episode on Then Again’s website, and also on Spotify (direct link here). I’m sure you can find it lots of other places, too. And while you’re at it, leave them a positive review!
Several times during our conversation, I told Marie I’d send her a link to this and that, so if you’re looking for those links, you’re in the right place! Enjoy.
Sarah's socials: Facebook, Instagram, Twitch
Cerulean Gallery in Amarillo and Dallas, TX
Great YouTube channels for beginning quilters: The Crafty Gemini, Just Get It Done Quilts
Gees Bend Quilters and the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
What is 'modern quilting'? (I'm not actually a huge fan of this organization, but this page does have a good explanation.)
Books I love:
The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters by Sherri Lynn Wood
Rosie Lee Tompkins: A Retrospective (The BAMPFA is currently taking orders for the next printing of the catalog.)
A Piece of My Soul: Quilts By Black Arkansans by Cuesta Benberry (1923-2007)
Godharis (quilts from Western India): This is the exhibition I saw at the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, NE: Collecting and Recollecting
Thanks again to Marie, Libba, and all the folks at the Northeast Georgia History Center! I encourage you to listen to their podcast, Then Again (not just the episode I’m in) for a wonderful, conversational look at history from all angles.