Tony Weiner Harvey Fierstein turned to quilting

“He’s an idiot,” says Harvey Fierstein as he approaches the Gammill long-arm quilting machine that dominates his art studio in Connecticut. The industrial-sized device includes a computer interface for creating precise patterns, but he’s best used like a pencil and paper, rolling doodles directly onto the icing-dyed plush. Dye is a recent addition to his process. “You go through these periods when the fabric speaks or when the design speaks,” he tells me. Right now, the fabric is screaming. At 73 years old, the Broadway legend has an encyclopedic knowledge of his materials, always remembering which drawer holds which scrap, which spool holds which thread, and which rack holds his custom denim.

When Fairstein began quilting in 2009, it was just a hobby. He has been a long-time HGTV fan simply quilt, Hosted by Alex Anderson, I decided to try out the design on a whim. Shortly thereafter, this craft studio – originally dedicated to painting and ceramics – was completely transformed. Fairstein is now considering writing a book about what he considers his primary profession. He initially thought of a quilting instructional guide, but his agent told him: “The world doesn’t need another one.” So he focuses on the personal: an art catalog that explores the purpose behind each of his 250 or so pieces. He says inspiration often comes quickly: “Do you remember, last week, we had this amazing moon?” A few days later came an intricate burgundy quilt in honor of that bright moon and its phases. Another time he dreamed of “having sex with trees.” That photo became a quilt as well.

Fairstein grew up in Bensonhurst in the 1950s. (His childhood proximity to Coney Island is evident in his current home; there is a giant sign hanging above his kitchen sink.) Becoming a good artist was his goal from a young age. He attended the High School of Art and Design and later earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Pratt, where he intended to study painting but switched to ceramics. “I was an art student and I hated art school,” he says, picking up some scraps of fabric from his closet.

His life in theater was an accident, as he began his career on stage when he auditioned in 1971 for a film Andy Warhol ham As a way to get to know the famous artist. He was cast in the short-lived experimental play at La MaMa as Amelia, whom he later described in his memoirs as an “asthmatic lesbian maid” with “a penchant for pornographic magazines and dish jobs.” It was on that tour that Fairstein discovered his love for the bike, which he demonstrated to me by pulling out a mesh quilt with drag queens and queer performers. Bianca del Rio is intricately drawn. So do Leigh Bowery, Nina West, and even Cole Escola.

By the time Fairstein graduated from art school in 1973, he was fully immersed in the downtown underground theater scene. La MaMa produced the first version of what would become his legendary semi-autobiographical play, The Torch Song Trilogy; It was later transferred to Broadway, for which it won its first and second Tony Awards. (He hand-knitted the bunny slippers featured in the show, and they are now in the Smithsonian.) After all this success, Fairstein had roles in Mrs. Doubtfire and Mulan And even starred in his own sitcom as a gay actor years ago will & beauty And its closed lead.

He says that when he bought his townhouse, it looked like a “terrible Malibu beach house,” but he bulldozed it and built a more red ranch to his liking. “There used to be no income tax here, but thanks to a former lover, there is now,” he says conspiratorially. For the next two decades, Fairstein worked between New York and Connecticut, writing the play Casa Valentina He wrote musical plays neoses and Strange shoes Tevye played on a national tour of Fiddler on the Roof. During the pandemic, his quilting habit increased, and when the lockdown eased, he realized he wasn’t keen on returning to his life in the city. “Some of it had to do with coronavirus, some of it had to do with where I was in my career,” he says. “But being an artist is always about trying to figure out your identity.” Fairstein looks briefly sad until he realizes that one of his dogs — he has two, both pony-sized — is about to vomit on an unused dyed cloth.

Over the summer, Fairstein decided it was time to take his quilts out into the world more formally. Up until that point, he had mostly given them as gifts — an all-white quilt with intricate stitching that went to Jordan Roth and Richie Jackson at their wedding, another to director Joe Mantello, and another to director Jerry Mitchell. So, he says, “I contacted the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and they told me they plan their shows five years in advance.” The Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center, also in Ridgefield, was more convenient. The show – titled “You Made That?”: Harvey Fierstein’s Quilting Adventures” – was almost completely sold out. His former neighbor and collaborator Alan Menken came, as did Fierstein’s “daughter”, actress Shoshanna Penn. Many people from the online quilting community showed up. Some even flew in from Texas. In the quilt he made to commemorate the exhibition, he depicts Vol;Roger, the museum’s caretaker; and the quiltmaker’s friend Lisa Pryor Lucey, whom he met after posting a photo of a quilt he hated on Facebook. Lucy drove from Pennsylvania to see the show, where she met Fairstein in person for the first time — though from the way he talks about her, you might think they see each other daily. Every other drawer in his house seems to contain scraps of Lucy, who seems to appear in every other quilt He makes it. “I wanted to see if the quilts meant anything to anyone but me,” he says. He left with two full books of signature greetings from attendees.

After more than 15 years of practice, there is a quilt that fits most of Fairstein’s life experiences. He showed me one he made after his friend Chita Rivera died. In the middle is Rivera in the famous Bob Fosse pose Sweet charity With a heart lined on her leg. “The heart on her leg is because she was in a car accident, and they thought she would never dance again,” he says. Just weeks after his close friend, actor Gavin Creel, died unexpectedly, he made a quilt in the shape of a man (Crell) facing off against a floating angel (Fierstein) and a wolf (Fierstein’s dog Bobo): “I was reaching out to him, saying, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?’

Fairstein sometimes invites friends for what he calls “bitch and stitch” sessions, during which they address the “everything” situation. His quilting circle has largely replaced his city life. The last time he was in Manhattan was to receive a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater, where he wore self-lined sneakers — something he learned to make in a class at his beloved quilting shop, Cotton Candy Fabrics. “I’ve withdrawn from the world in a lot of ways. I’ve withdrawn from a lot of things,” Fairstein says as we look at what he calls the “Anti-Trump Quilt,” a scene of walking skeletons against a background of yellow stars and pink triangles. His social life before the pandemic has not fully returned. He told me about the invitations he had sent out. “Ari Melber is having dinner, and he’s begging me to come. He said, ‘There’ll just be eight of us,’ and Feirstein did not come. ‘It doesn’t feel like home to me anymore,’ he says. ‘The city doesn’t have what I want it to have for me.'” He is still attached to theatrical projects, and tells me he is in frequent contact with Robert O’Hara, who will direct a black production. Entirely for the play La Cage aux Folies This summer at New York City Center starring Billy Porter. I try to ask him, but he’s not interested. He has a technique he wants to show me: how he uses invisible thread to place threads on a quilt to get thicker borders.