Sometime in the mid-90s, I received a manuscript from Sarah Hafner. The result was a chapbook of stories called Some Girls
A mature Salinger arrives on the scene and it’s a woman!
Much funnier than Salinger, though–and what struck me, when I received a copy in 1999, was that Vivisphere had lifted my idea for the cover. That impression last about three seconds until I realized that of course there would be a quilt on the cover.
As wonderful a writer as Hafner is, she’s also an amazing visual artist. I spent a day with Sarah once, when she came out from New England to San Francisco for a trade show. I’m not sure how to describe the quilts she was making in those days, except to say they remind me of pulp sci fi novel book covers:
Sarah’s inventiveness extended not only to her choice of subject matter, but to technique, as well. She gave me a Space Aliens quilt and as I studied it, I realized it wasn’t just bits of fabric sewn together (not that that’s a small thing). She paints, photo transfer and otherwise manipulates the fabric as well. Indeed, after I got Space Aliens framed and hung it on a wall, one dark night I walked in and saw that a message had been inscribed across the quilt in glow-in-the-dark paint. What the message says you’ll have to learn for yourself by getting your own version of Space Aliens.
Recently, Sarah and I have, in some sort of minimal innertubes way, gotten back in touch. She has a lovely Web site and has apparently continued with quilt making, extending her range with new-old fabrics such as adire (dyed with indigo) and pattern-dyed shibori. It’s all incredibly beautiful, thoughtful work.
Sadly, I learned that Sarah’s father, Everett, died in 1998, apparently, judging from the content of the memorial site for her father, of “wrongful death.” Everett Hafner was a physicist and musician, brilliant like his daughter, as well as an inventor. One of his inventions is pictured on his site, a pyramidal speaker enclosure the likes of which I’ve never seen.
