Trump yard signs had sprung up like weeds along the roadside on our way to Makers Mill in Wolfeboro, NH. The community makers space, an hour’s drive from my home in Concord, has a fully equipped fiber arts section with a long-arm quilter. I was hoping to use it to finish my portrait quilt. But how would the folks in this predominantly conservative area respond when they saw my quilt?
As my husband and I drove the country road on a picture-perfect summer day, I thought about how I had been suppressing my creativity to avoid conflict with people who might take offense to my art. Rather than risking verbal or physical assault, I had voluntarily muzzled myself and avoided events where I might be around people with different political points of view. I stopped posting anything controversial on social media.
It got worse.
At a family wedding in April, where I was hyper-careful about hiding my feelings of despair, I ended up in the emergency room with heart problems – the second time in less than two months. Two weeks later I would be hospitalized again for several days and a procedure that “might help” was scheduled for early September.
Expressing my thoughts and emotions artistically has always been my way of managing stress. Now, shutting down that relief valve was harming both my mental and physical health. I didn’t realize how many other people were in the same place.
Then everything changed
On July 21st, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that she was running for president. She was positive and welcoming, kind and reassuring. Unlike the Republican candidate, who was instilling fear and divisiveness – she was inviting ordinary people to work together to solve the many problems facing our nation and our world. She reminded us that most Americans care about the consequences of our words and actions on others. Instead of “fighting fire with fire” she was drowning it with intelligence, compassion, and humor.
My muse awoke with renewed energy, inspiring me to create a quilt of Kamala Harris that expressed my gratitude for restoring my faith in the future. I’d never made a portrait quilt before – in fact, I’m fairly new to quilting. Inspired by Bisa Butler’s applique technique that uses fabric bits as a medium, I blew up a photo of Harris to 30” x 40”, printed it out in tiles, taped them together on my closet door, and outlined blocks of color with a Sharpie. Diving headlong into the project, I made up the process as I went along.
Censuring artistic expression
When my quilt was in its beginning stages, and I didn’t even think the subject was recognizable, I posted a question on a Facebook quilting group with a photo of it to illustrate my question: Would the iron-on transfer adhesive I was using to hold my fabric bits in place, gum-up the needle on the long-arm quilter? When I checked back on the post an hour later there were over 300 comments!
While some commenters offered experienced advice on swabbing the needle with alcohol, there were also compliments. To my surprise, people recognized the subject of the portrait, even though it only showed the eyes and forehead at that point. Many comments cheered Kamala Harris, some even suggesting we start a Quilters for Kamala group. Several requested that I post the quilt when it was finished. No one complained – at least not in the thread.
I suspect that the complainers went directly to the group moderator. Later that day, I received a message from the moderator informing me that my post had been removed and I was in breach of the rules forbidding political statements. So much for freedom of artistic expression!
Kamala emerges from the bits and pieces
After adding the rest of the face, I posted a photo of the quilt on my own Facebook page, asking for feedback. Again the response was positive with some valuable suggestions on how to improve it. The beauty of the technique was that I could just peel back sections and reposition or modify them. Similar to painting a mural, it was a challenge to “see” what I was doing when I was up close.
My husband and I drove to Wolfeboro that August morning, past farm after farm emblazoned with the name of someone I couldn’t fathom anyone wanting to lead our nation. We arrived at Makers Mill just in time to join a tour of the facility and then I went through the Shop Member Orientation. What a joy it was to be around creative people! I thought, well artists really are just the best people… hmmm, gardeners are too… and poets… and the people I pass when walking up Main Street in Concord. Something akin to joie de vivre was reigniting in me.
But what would these wonderful folks say when they saw my quilt? At this point, the entire face of the portrait was completed and easily recognizable. Would they, like the moderator of the Facebook quilting group, give me the “boot”?
I would need someone to help me install the quilt on the frame and to show me how to use the long-arm machine, so I introduced myself to a woman in the Fiber Arts section and asked for her help. Hesitantly I un-rolled my quilt and waited for her reaction.
She seemed astonished! Was that good or bad?
She called to other artists to come to see what I had done. The young man who had guided us on the shop orientation came over. They were smiling. My creation was a hit!!! Without offering an opinion about the candidate, everyone was over the moon about my creation!
It took more than one session on the long arm to finish quilting Kamala. I had been naïve thinking I could get it right first try and spent more hours than I care to admit, at home, picking out stitches. When I returned to Makers Mill a few days later to use the long-arm, I broke five needles that morning! After a long lunch break, the long-arm and I finally found our rhythm and finished the quilting dance without a hitch. Since the stars and stripes and the hair were on the outer edges of the quilt, I was able to complete them on my home sewing machine.
Bringing people together
Somehow it all came together. But that’s not all that came together with my quilt. Emboldened by the reception at Makers Mill, I brought my quilt to events where I wasn’t sure how it would be welcomed, including a poetry event at an art gallery. And each time, the people who gathered to admire it felt comfortable talking about how happy they were that VP Harris is now the candidate. They talked about how they too had been feeling depressed, lonely, and afraid before Harris announced she was running. And now their morale had changed, just as it had for me.
This quilt has opened the door to respectful conversations and shown me how important art is to helping people find common ground. Isn’t that why we create art?
Not only did creating and sharing this quilt pull me back from the cliff of despair, it may have even healed my heart. My health has improved to the point that the procedure scheduled for September was canceled!
