Portrait of Denise Schultz, April 4, 2008

Photo by Renee Getreu

Mom came to know Ms. Schultz early in 1975 at Stephens College, where they shared a suite in WOOD HALL. As a matter of fact, Denise had heard that Mom was crazy, and did not unlock her door to the shared bathroom for several months. But once she came to know Mom and Shannon (THE Shannon Brown of Vestpursement fame) the three became loyal friends and are to this day. At college, Denise was the only one of the three majoring in Art, per se (Shannon's declared major was History, and Mom's was Dance). A good deal of Ms. Schultz' work was in the ceramics department, where she spent alot of late nights with the kiln. But Denise Schultz had alot more to her 4 foot 11 inches than meets the eye, and here we will try to scrape the surface of her deep and rich mine of talent and intuition.

As a young person growing up in rural Connecticut, Denise's home included a beautiful section of woods where she could be with the plants and animals in the great out-of-doors. Mom spent a weekend there one winter after college, and in a three storey house, heated with one fireplace, there was a good deal of the great out-of-doors to be experienced right inside the house! The land was stunning, and Ms. Schultz had ample time to absorb much of the beauty that was there. She had pets to care for and a mother with a green thumb to show her love of plants, as well. Denise's father was a brilliant scientist and it seems as though she got her analytical mind from him. We are just glad for all of that, because we simply love her for the great person she is today, all on her little lonesome.

(To paraphrase Owen Wister, 'Smile when you call me that, Trampass...').

At Stephens College Ms. Schultz specialized in Ceramics. It is with the greatest of regret that there are none to show on the website. The only vase that Mom had was broken in the intervening years, and the small rose is yet to be located.

Be that as it may, Denise has not been idle. She has had several careers, making quilts, with needlework, and as an Animal Reiki practitioner.

We recently were the greatful recipients of her expertise as we tried to nurse our guest cat, Meowlkavich back to health. Her intercession made quite a difference in his comfort and condition during his illness. On deniseschultz.net one may read more about the possibilities available from this amazing empath. Some people just have it. She made tremendous contributions with suggestions of preparations, infusions, and recipes for health and well being, and contributed in ways that were surprising, considering we are separated by more than a thousand physical miles.

JEWELS TO WEAR
Designed and Fashioned by Denise Schultz

Prize-Winning Brooch
Entered in Marin Society for Artists competition
Comissioned for Bel, generous patron of the arts

Birds In Flight

 

Eagle Pendant

Moonlight On The Water, Bracelet
(all jewelry is original work, handcrafted by the artist and copyright 2008)

 
Here is an example of Ms Schultz' graphic design.

Truely a Renaissance woman.

NEEDLEWORK

Ko-No-Mon Gate
For Denise' Mother. A tribute.

Cotton pre-quel to 'Weather' which sold for $3,000.00 in 1987.
This cotton version has the same 25,000 stitches.

RAINBOW
Cotton scarf with a knit technique developed by the artist.

QUILTS

Denise Schultz is a master quilter. Here are but a few of the magnificent quilts she has prepared for people, won prizes for, and with which she has graced the field.

First Quilt: Made of Indonesian Batik, being shown at Denise's first San Francisco Quilt Guild meeting in 1988

Academy Tribute Quilt

Donated to the Academy. The two-headed snakes were Denise's favorites,  the detail is the snakes and their rock
in the block upper left in the center of the quilt.

Folk Art Quilt, comissioned as a wedding present for Doug and Cathy,
from Sage.
All the blocks were done by people who had never sewn before,
and Ms Schultz won a ribbon for it as a group quilt.

An unknown man standing behind Lisa and Bel (daughter and mother) on Lisa's birthday. Lisa and Bel are wearing T-shirts designed and made for them by Denise Schultz.

'Double Delight,' a quilt comissioned for Bel (shown with the quilt) by Lisa. Made with a unique machine quilted rose design adapted by ms Schultz into a single line design (no starting or stopping) from a photograph of Bel's favorite rose.

Detail of the single-line rose quilting design.

'Endless Road' Rainforest Quilt 

Antique Friendship Quilt Top from Texas.
It is from the 1930's and Ms Schultz was comissioned to put it together for the family. This quilt is unusual because the men sewed their own blocks
(rather than having the woman sew for her husband).
The center block in the left column says "Dad."

'What A Night ' Quilt
Detail in which you can see the unusual marbled fabrics
Denise made for this quilt.

The artist holding 'Celestial Spring' Quilt

Denise qualifies as a Bhaskar Alumna in a major way: The last semester Mom was at Stephens College, the Dance and Music departments collaborated on a fabulous production of THE KING AND I. Mom was fortunate (and of course, talented enough) to land a singing role as Prince Chululonkorn, while Denise was put in charge of the Makeup Design for the entire production: How to turn a bunch of American white and black girls into Siamese children and women. Guest Artist and chorepographer for the dance sequences was none other that our beloved BHASKAR. Had Mom been a dancer in the production, Bhaskar would have been her 'boss' and therefore never become a friend. But Mom had a speaking/singing role, and as it happened, Bhaskar ran out of Marlboros one night at rehearsal and accepted one of Mom's Krakatoa Kreteks as a substitute. In the course of the production, though, it was Denise who first became friends with Bhaskar. It was Denise who insisted that she and Mom get to know him better, so it was, to a rather large degree, Denise Schultz who was responsible for pushing Mom into her career as an East Indian Bharatha Natyam dancer in Bhaskar's company the following year. Thanks alot...rather,

Thank you, Denise, for an experience that could never be duplicated in a million years!

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