Marilyn Naylor probably doesn’t think of herself as an artist, but that she most definitely is – artist, chef, gardener, homemaker, yoga teacher and entrepreneur. In many ways the 75-year-old defies definition, but only because the domestic arts themselves seem to have fallen on hard times.
But for those who appreciate and wish we’d learned some of the lost arts our aunts, uncles and grandparents practiced in a more agrarian age to make their winters more productive and our hearths homier, she’s an icon.
The most likely way your paths may have crossed is via her home-based business, Alice’s Awesome Fudge (https://www.aafudge.com/). Over the holidays she shipped 60-70 packages a week from online orders and she regularly stocks Roots 657 Café and Local Market, the Oatlands gift shop, the Very Virginia Shop, the Catoctin Exxon station, Leesburg Liberty gas station and the hamburger restaurant Melt with up to a dozen flavors. Caterers like Pure Perfection Catering also serve as outlets.
The delectable sweets and the artfully packaged are a go-to holiday client gift for many in the local business community. But although her business occupies the better part of three days per week, don’t be so quick to type-cast Marilyn as a confectioner. The truth is even more intriguing.
Marilyn sells fudge to cover her addiction to quilting.
At this point the conversation moves from the kitchen to the basement where cabinets stand row on row, stacked alongside or beneath broad tables for the laying out and planning of quilting designs. Each cabinet holds many drawers and each drawer is full of neatly organized pieces of brightly colored fabric. It would be easy to dive headlong into stories about contemporary fabric designers like Philip Jacobs, Brandon Mabry and Kaffe Fassett, but there’s the Internet for that. Suffice it to say that just a yard of designer cotton goes for $12-$15 or more, and that one of the quilts Marilyn has in the works will have 1,000 pieces when she’s finished.
Instead, what draws the eye is something entirely different: an Underground Railroad sampler quilt Marilyn has made by assembling squares that were used by abolitionists to guide and signal escaping slaves on their way to freedom in Canada. She researched the squares using the book “Hidden In Plain View, A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad,” by Jacqueline L Tobin and Raymond J Dobard. The patterns might be unintelligible today, but to the initiated the right quilt thrown over a back fence or flapping on a close-line would have communicated as clearly as today’s road signs.
Today, the quilt also has a purpose: to communicate how dangerous the road to freedom was for the formerly enslaved. Marilyn hopes to donate the quilt to Oatlands Historic House and Gardens where it can be used as a teaching tool.
Her roots grow into the mission of Oatlands in another way. An avid gardener, she used to raise irises and sell them wholesale to garden stores, but now works her magic on a larger stage as head of Oatland’s garden committee. Not everyone can manage four and a half acres of historically cultivated and meticulously maintained gardens, but Marilyn’s circles of friends include vast and interconnected web of the horticulturally inclined. The Purcellville Garden Club planted all the planters last Spring and the Leesburg Garden Club helped to fund an irrigation system. With their help and that of a grant, Marilyn hopes soon to build an Oatlands Garden Club with locals passionate about restoring the plantation’s herb and meditative gardens. “We encourage garden clubs to come have tea in the gardens or dances. They’re not just static, they’re to be enjoyed,” she says.
Gardeners’ interest stems from the sheer enjoyment of watching their efforts bloom, learning a bit of local history, and the chance to enjoy the company of other gardeners in one of the more scenic parts of the county. Whatever your passion or age, Marilyn urges, “find the people that you'd like being with and with whom you share interests. I call it finding your own tribe.”
Where to look for others who share your interests:
Waterford Foundation, http://Waterfordfoundation.org, Stephanie Thompson, Exec. Dir., 540-882-3018
Waterford Quilters Guild, President Susan Courtney, waterfordquilters@gmail.com, https://waterfordquiltersguild.org/
CountrySide Quilters, https://countrysidequilters.wordpress.com/
Purcellville Garden Club, https://www.facebook.com/purcellvillegardenclub/, Marilyn Naylor, Mhollyfield46@gmail.com
Aldie Horticultural Society, https://aldiehortie.wordpress.com/, President Laura Senty, laurasenty@aol.com
The Middleburg Garden Club, https://www.facebook.com/MiddleburgGardenClub/
The Woman’s Club of Loudoun, https://www.womansclubofloudoun.org/gfwc-the-woman-s-club-of-loudoun, Ann Livoti, annfromva@aol.com
Keep Loudoun Beautiful, https://keeploudounbeautiful.org/, info@keeploudounbeautiful.org, 703-705-2288; P.O. Box 5, Leesburg, VS 200178
Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia, https://mgnv.org/.