9/11
Unknown artist from the Kaross Workers
Letsitele, North Province, South Africa
2002
Collection of the Michigan State University Museum acc.#2000:58.2

In 1988, painter Irma van Rooyen organized a project to provide regular employment for wives of male workers - mostly Tsonga or Venda speakers - on the farm run by her husband. Five women participated at first and, as of 2004, the number has grown to over four hundred and now also includes a few men. This piece, one of the many representations by artists around the world of the destruction of the World Trade Center in September 2001, illustrates the worldwide access via media that artists, even in remote areas, have to war related events.

 

News From Native America
Judy Toppings
White Earth, Minnesota
1996
Collection of the Michigan State University Museum acc.#1996:134.1

Ojibwa/Anishnabe artist Toppings made this pictorial quilt to commemorate American Indian demonstrations, protests, community and political history. The quilt is signed in lower left corner: “Dedicated to all people who take stand and fight for justice, freedom or religion, equality and environmental issues. Judy Toppings, 1996, White Eart Rez., MN.”

 

So Many Twin Towers
Diana N'Diaye
Washington, D.C.
2007
Collection of the Michigan State University Museum acc.#2008:120.1

y work is inspired by traditions of visual storytelling and improvisation in the quilts created by Sea Island needle artists. My ancestors and elders are my muses, always with me in my dreams at my sewing table. This piece was created as a gut response to the bombing of Afghanistan and other inhumane and inappropriate reactions to the bombings on 9/11. These actions and subsequent invasion of Iraq, violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have added innumerable innocent deaths and ruined lives to the toll of the tragedy of the twin towers.

N'Diaye is an anthropologist, visual artist, Cultural Heritage Specialist and Curator at the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and a Research Associate, Michigan State University Museum. N'Diaye grew up in a Carribean family where she learned at an early age a love of needlework from her elder aunts and a love of working with cloth from her mother Patricia Croney and her teacher, New York couturier Zelda Wynn. She also counts artist and quiltmaker friend Faith Ringgold as an early mentor and influence. In the early 1980s, Dr. N'Diaye was a member of the Urban Fiber Artists. Her work was featured in the juried exhibition Folk Art-Traditions and Innovations at Harmony Hall Gallery, Fort Washington, Maryland, in 2007.

 

Tiananmen Squares
Kerry Nagel
Whitefish, Montana
1998
Collection of the International Quilt Study Center acc.#1998.008.002

1989 … The Communist Regime in China stands firm. My six inch background fabric blocks line up in a row … pale, squared off, void of character or color. The army stands in formation.

Spring … Students gather. Their newfound ideals and philosophies are still in formative stages. I add muted pastel pieces, free-formed and not yet fully defined, over the neatly trimmed base. Hardliners and activists share one surface.

April … Chinese ancients believed that every act has Six Stages, with the Seventh Stage being The Turning Point. And so it was at Tiananmen Square. The Chinese characters stitched into the quilt represent: K’UN – Oppression; SHIH – The Army; SUNG – Conflict; TZ’UI – Massing together; PI – Holding Together; KO – Revolution. The final character, constructed of fabric in the same stroke order as proper Chinese Calligraphy, symbolizes FU, The Turning Point. The uprising is put down, but the corner has been turned …

This quilt was honored with a second place prize in: Expressions of Freedom: Quilts Celebrating Human Rights, a contest and exhibition held by the International Quilt Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1998 to honor the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

 

Tree of Peace Saves the Earth
Alice Olsen Williams
Curve Lake First Nation Reservation, Ontario, Canada
1991
Collection of the Michigan State University Museum acc.#7593.1

Anishnabe quilter and Trent University faculty member Alice Olsen Williams made this signed work, inspired by Mohawk teachings of the White Root of Peace, to commemorate the Oka incident in 1990 when the Mohawks resisted the further taking away of their land.

I personally want to pay tribute to and honor the Mohawk people at this time because, against great odds, they made known to the world, and brought up to date, the fact that we aboriginal peoples all over the world are still trying to regain our rights to our lands, our cultures, our relatives, our language, our beliefs and customs and our world views that we have to struggle and fight for constantly. The fight to save ourselves isn't just about what happened 100 or 200 or 300 or 400 or even 500 years ago as the dominant ideology would want us to believe; THE CIRCUMSTANCES, MACHINERY, and IDEOLOGY ARE STILL in place, are still HERE, in motion, alive and well, to get rid of us, the First Nations Inhabitants of the great and sacred Turtle Island.

In the comfort of my home, while the Mohawks were suffering inhuman insults and conditions at the hand of our enemies, I had the privilege of being able to think and wonder about how, through my art, I could be able to show my love and respect for these Mohawk people who have put their lives, their families, their loved ones on the line to stand up to that oppressive, unjust, inhumane, degrading, genocidal massive machinery. It is one thing for me to be able to have the luxury of sitting in my work area and commemorate a piece of art to honor the just and brave Mohawks and quite another to be out there on the front lines, fighting and defending our rights and laying my life on the line. I realize this contradiction and I know it is not good enough to say, "I'm sorry," and to say, "Thank you," to them.

The Mohawk teaching about the Great Tree of Peace talks about the time when there will be peace over all the Land. At the top of the tree sits the Eagle, the strong and sacred bird who helps to look after all the Beings and takes our prayers to the Creator. Around her is the Sun, a Life-giver, for without the Sun, there would be no Life. The four roots of the Sacred Tree of Peace represent the Four Directions that embody the teachings of sharing, honesty, kindness and caring. The roots are on the back of a turtle that represents Turtle Island. Under the roots are buried weapons [crossed tomahawk and war club] of oppression. When peace is allowed to come, all implements of war shall be buried. We believe that a patriarchal, capitalist, socioeconomic ideology permeates the land. This system is represented by the [Canadian] Parliament buildings. As First Nations people we believe it is the Anishinaabeg who will teach the white man about the balance of the natural world and how to live in harmony and peace with all of Creation. This is shown by the Tree of Peace growing through the Parliament buildings, destroying all that they stand for and replacing it with the teachings of peace, caring, sharing, and harmony.

Williams’s work has been published in magazines and books, shown in many exhibitions (including To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting organized by Michigan State University Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian), and is in many private and public collections in Canada and in the U.S.

 

Yesterday: Civil Rights in the South III
Yvonne Wells
1989
Collection of the Montgomery Museum of Art

The story in this quilt is revealed by vignettes of different events (not in chronological order). It begins in the lower right corner: the Mayflower arrives at what is now the United States, and a black man rows a white man ashore; people picking cotton and a lynching are immediately visible to the left. Next comes Rosa Parks's historic bus; above that is a depiction of the Mississippi dam in which Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman (the three figures to the left of the strip of brown fabric) were buried. The illustration in the upper left represents the bombing of the chuch in Birmingham that killed four little girls (at that church, one grave is set apart from the other three, so Wells shows only three graves); next is a representation of George Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door" to prevent the University of Alabama's being integrated; slightly to the right and below are symbols that indicate the presence of the Ku Klux Klan in the South. A dog on a long leash symbolizes Bull Connor, Birmingham's commissioner of public safety who set police dogs on civil rights marchers; the capitol building in Montgomery is shown with the Confederate flag atop the national and state flags (a situation that has been corrected since Wells made this quilt - the Confederate flag now flies on a separate staff elsewhere on the capitol grounds). The man in the middle of the bright sunshine is Martin Luther King, Jr., and he is surrounded by marchers, both black and white. One in a green garment is being hit with a water hose, another technique used in Birmingham to discourage civil rights demonstrators. Segregated water fountains are shown beneath the fireman. The red background represents the fire, the bloodshed, the tumult of the time that Wells calls "Yesterday."
[Text from exhibition catalogue Just How I Pictured It In My Mind: Contemporary African-American Quilts from the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and River City Publishing, Montgomery, Alabama, 2006.]

 

Angry Young Men
Marion Coleman
Castro Valley, California
2006
Collection of the Michigan State University Museum acc.#2008:157.1

“Angry Young Men is a fiber collage quilt that examines urban violence, the criminal justice system in the United States and community ambivalence toward the loss of a generation of young African American men. There appears to be a lack of public will to address their basic human right to have an enriched life, health, education and prosperity.”

 

Arpillera
Unidentified artist
Chile
c1980
Collection of John Beck and Ann Austin

MSU labor educator and MSU Museum adjunct curator John Beck acquired this work in 1981 or 1982 in Ann Arbor from Madame Letellier (the widow of Orlando Letellier who was assassinated in Washington, D.C., by the Pinochet regime) who was an instructor in the Residential College at the University of Michigan. The textile depicts a strike by the professionals’ union (professors, engineers, etc.). A small piece of paper rolled up and inserted in the back of the textile carried text in Spanish that references dismissal of 45 employees.

 

Journey to Freedom, Memory Quilt
Intuthuko Sewing Group*
South Africa
2004
Collection of UNISA (University of South Africa)

This hanging was made especially for an event at the University of South Africa that reflected on the demise of apartheid. Coordinated by UNISA faculty Gwenneth Miller and Wendy Ross, the multimedia project included the creation of two embroidered memory quilts as well as a digital animation. Each square represents one woman’s memories. The two panels include such historical events as the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, in which the police fired on a crows of black protesters, killing 69; the student uprising and massacre in Soweto in 1968; and the first elections under the new democratic government. The figures with tires around their necks are being “necklaced” (burned to death when gasoline is poured on the tire and ignited) on the suspicion of collaborating with the authorities.

*Celia de Villiers, Sonja Barac were the professional artists who facilitated and mentored the following individual artists in the Intuthuko Sewing Group: Pinky Lubisi, Thembisile Mabizela, Zanele Mabuza, Angie Namaru, Lindo Mnguni, Julie Mokoena, Salaminha Motloung, Angelina Mucavele, Thabitha Nare, Nomsa Ndala, Maria Nkabinde, Cynthia Radebe, Sannah Sasebola, Rosinah Teffo, Lizzy Tsotetsi, Dorothy Xaba

 

Journey to Freedom, Memory Quilt
Boitumelo Sewing Group*
South Africa
2004
Collection of UNISA (University of South Africa)

This textile was made especially for an event at the University of South Africa that reflected on the demise of apartheid. Coordinated by UNISA faculty Gwenneth Miller and Wendy Ross, the multimedia project included the creation of two embroidered memory quilts as well as a digital animation. Each square represents one woman’s memories. The two panels include such historical events as the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, in which the police fired on a crows of black protesters, killing 69; the student uprising and massacre in Soweto in 1968; and the first elections under the new democratic government. The figures with tires around their necks are being “necklaced” (burned to death when gasoline is poured on the tire and ignited) on the suspicion of collaborating with the authorities.

*Erica Luttich was the professional artist who facilitated and mentored the following individual artists in Boitumelo Sewing Group: Flora Raseala, D. Emmah Mphahlele, Lilian Mary Mawela, Ammellah M. Makhari, Martinah P. Mashabela, Naledzani R. Matshinge, Gloria Melula, Elisa D. Mahama, Linda Mkhungo

 

Menschen
Gisela Rikeit, et al
Graben-Neudorf, Germany
1998
Collection of the International Quilt Study Center acc.#1998.008.0001

Joy and pensiveness – this quilt shall evoke those reactions
30 faces – produced in monotype highlighted by wax –
represent peoples cultures, and religions of our world.

The bright colors demonstrate our positive
Emotions, born by the knowledge of the
Achievements in the fight for human rights

The black border, in places with barbed wire,
Expresses our sadness, knowing that torture,
Imprisonment, and atrocity are still reality In some countries

On the border to the left we have written
Selected human rights articles on a fabric
Colored red – synonymous for pain and blood

This quilt was honored with the first prize in Expressions of Freedom: Quilts Celebrating Human Rights, a contest and exhibition held by the International Quilt Study Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1998 to honor the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

 

Merits of Bombs?
Meena Schaldenbrand
Plymouth, Michigan
November 2005
Collection of the artist

“Twenty-six countries have been bombed by the USA since 1945. The quilt is already outdated since it was made in 2005
and bombs are still exploding in Iraq today! Are these facts sobering enough to shock us into peace? What is the meaning of this?”

 

Middle Passage
Karimah Abdusamad
Durham, North Carolina
2007
Collection of the artist

“Of the many roles that an artist has in a society one of them is to call attention to the triumphs that the society revels in as well as the injustices that it has committed and upholds as part of its laws. With the 200th year anniversary of the abolition of the trade in human beings looms near it becomes increasingly apparent that the Middle Passage begs to be revisited and evaluated in order to have true reconciliation.

It is also the role of the artist to present some works in such a ways as to evaluate and allow the viewer to interact and have a relationship with the work that stimulates the intellect over the emotions and in a way encouraging said person to willingly participate in a visual dialogue. By abstracting the Middle Passage as I have done it is my hope that the viewer will engage with the piece and then with themselves, thus looking a bit longer and reflecting a lot deeper.”

 

Peeling Layers Back to Basics
Meena Schadlenbrand
Plymouth, Michigan
DJuly 2000
Collection of the Michigan State University Museum acc.#2001:158.2

Underneath our many layers of clothing and skin we are the same.
Marvel at our similarities, celebrate our differences.
Have a heart, reach out, and lend a hand...
Make a difference in the short time we have...

This quilt was included in Roots of Racism, a juried international exhibition first organized in 2000 in Memphis, Tennessee. The exhibition began when quilt artist Susan Leslie Lumsden sent a plea over the Internet calling on her fellow quilters to address the global problems of prejudice and hatred. Within hours, hundreds of American quilters had responded and the concept for a group exhibition was subsequently shown at the US Ambassador's Residence in Islamabad, Pakistan as part of the 2003-2005 Art in Embassies program. The Art in Embassies Program exhibitions play an important role in our nation's public diplomacy. They provide international audiences with a sense of quality, scope, and diversity of American art and culture through the accomplishments of some of our most important citizens, our artists.

 

She Carries Her House
Chris Worland
East Lansing, Michigan
Spring 2000
Collection of the Michigan State University Museum acc.#2008:155.1

“In the summer of 1999, I traveled to South Africa. The South Africans I met were very welcoming and friendly. When they began to tell stories of living through apartheid, I was shocked by the level of violence and coercion and dismayed by my ignorance of that horrible period in South Africa’s history. This quilt is my response to that trip. The pass book photo is from a museum in Durban, Kwa Muthle Museum. The turtle was inspired by a woodcut by Carina Minnar. The turtle represents the rights granted in the 13th clause in the South African Bill of Rights. Like the turtle who carries her house with her, South Africans are now free to reside where they please.”

Under apartheid, all non-white South Africans were subjected to strict rules of segregation and limits of their rights. All non-whites had to carry a pass book which included their photograph and a statement of whether they were Indian, black, or colored (mixed race). Failure to produce a pass book on demand often led to harassment, torture, and imprisonment. The system of pass laws was finally repealed in South Africa in 1986.

 

Southern Heritage, Southern Shame
Gwendolyn Magee
Jackson, Mississippi
2001
Collection of the Michigan State University Museum acc.#2008:159.1

“This quilt is my response to the failure of the April 17, 2001 referendum for the State of Mississippi to adopt a flag without the confederate battle emblem. Proponents to retain it stated that it is just a symbol of southern pride and southern heritage. My goal with this piece is to expose exactly that of which they are so proud - a heritage that glorifies slavery; a heritage based on racism and hatred; a heritage that committed atrocities and unspeakable acts of savagery; and a heritage dedicated to oppression by using terroristic tactics to instill fear and impose subservience.”

 

The Holocaust
Natalia Merentseva
St. Petersburg, Russia
1998
Collection of the International Quilt Study Center acc.#1998.008.0008

“I could give my work this subtitle: People Violate Human Rights. An opinion exists that the war crime can be explained by the cruelty of the wartime. We cannot agree with it. No one is born to be a criminal. Human extermination on a mass scale is the last link in a long chain where a small crime gives rise to a bigger one. That is why there are not more important or less important paragraphs in the Declaration of Human Rights. Even a simple nonobservance of political correctness in a statement today can be a reason of genocide against the whole nation tomorrow.”

This quilt was honored with the Former Soviet Union Regional Prize in Expressions of Freedom: Quilts Celebrating Human Rights, a contest held by the International Quilt Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1998 to honor the 50th anniversary of the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights.

 

Strange Fruit: A Century of Lynching from 1865-1965
April Shipp
Auburn Hills, Michigan
2003
Collection of the artist

“Strange Fruit is named after a song by the late Billie Holiday, and it’s dedicated to Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, an African American Newspaper journalist born in 1862, who fought for an anti-lynching law. The story of my Quilt began with an episode of the Oprah show. Her guest had written a book entitled The Face of Our Past, a book dedicated to African American Women. The book was filled with marvelous photos, but one picture was not so marvelous. It was a post card of a mother and her son who had been lynched side by side from a bridge. Until that moment, it never occurred to me that they lynched women, also. Photos were often taken of people who had been lynched. These pictures were called post cards because that was what they were. I have a son who at the time was only five. I thought, if an angry mob came after my boy what would I do? Who do you turn to for help when the whole town is coming after your child? I began to pray, "Father God, someone needs to do something about this." These people need to be known, if not their stories, at least their names. I believe the spirit of the Lord spoke to me, "Find their names and make a quilt."

“Strange Fruit weighs 12 pounds and its 10' long by 10'6" wide. The fabrics are various shades of black. In making this Quilt, I learned that it didn’t matter who you were. It didn’t matter how old you were. It could happen to anyone, anywhere, and anytime. I did this Quilt in loving memory of my people, people I have never met, people whose names are not only woven into the fabric of this Quilt, but also into the fabric of my heart.”

Interview with April Shipp on Martin Luther King Day, 2008 at the Quilts and Human Rights exhibit, Michigan State University Museum.
Interviewer: Marsha MacDowell.

 

Ugly Quilt Sleeping Bag
Flo Wheatley
Hop Bottom, Pennsylvania
Started in 1985
Collection of the My Brothers Keeper Quilt Group

Our mission statement.
My Brothers Keeper Quilt Group is not a club. We are individuals and groups desiring to help the homeless by making simple sleeping bags from recycled fabrics and distributing them FREE to people who are cold on the street.

OUR ONLY PURPOSE IS TO HELP THE HOMELESS BE WARM UNTILL THEY CAN BE HELPED OR HEALED BY OTHERS IN OUR SOCIETY. CAN YOU HELP ?

Flo Wheatley held her young son, Leonard, as he was vomiting and near collapse. Returning from the hospital and his daily cancer treatments, they were a block from a subway station in New York City. It began to rain. Commuters rushed past them. Flo heard a voice say: "You need help, lady," and she looked up to see a homeless man, wearing jeans, sneakers and a cutoff army jacket. She felt a little fear and declined his help, saying: "No, we’re okay." But the homeless man said again: "You need help, lady." He picked up her suitcase and walked toward the subway. Flo and Leonard followed him and the three of them boarded the train. They all got off at Flo’s station and the homeless man hailed a taxi for her.

"I pressed a $5 bill into the man’s hand before the cab pulled away," Flo said, "and I heard him say, softly: ‘Don’t abandon me.’" Flo has never forgotten his words.

Two years later, in 1985, Leonard, who had suffered from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, was recovering miraculously. And in the small town of Hop Bottom, Pennsylvania (population 385), Flo Wheatley stitched her first sleeping bag, using her kids’ outgrown clothing — jeans, shirts and sweaters. She and her husband drove into Manhattan and gave the bag to a man huddled in a doorway. She made eight bags that year.

Ugly Quilts
News of her sleeping bags spread through the rural area and soon neighbors were dropping off fabrics at her home. A local church invited Flo to speak and to demonstrate how to make the bags. She named the family project My Brother’s Keeper Quilt Group. She called the bags 'Ugly Quilts' so that volunteers wouldn’t think they were too difficult to make. The grass roots project continued to grow — women began gathering to sew and socialize. Many of the sleeping bags were delivered to Flo’s garage for distribution — her garage door remained unlocked to accept deliveries. In 1992, more than 5,300 'Ugly Quilts' were distributed to homeless people and to shelters in Manhattan and other large cities.

The Wheatley family created a single page of simple instructions on how to make an 'Ugly Quilt'. The first step is to sew pieces of fabric together to form a seven foot square, and then another one. These squares are joined together. Old drapes, blankets and mattress pads are added for padding and men’s neckties are used as handles. All the fabrics are recycled. There is a big demand for these instructions.

A mail crew arrives at Flo’s home every Wednesday morning for breakfast and to open the mail bags. There are requests for instructions from all over the United States as well as other parts of the world. A missionary in Mexico asked for instructions to make a bag for himself and to teach others to make sleeping bags. There was news from American volunteers at an army camp in Germany: supply planes had dropped 'Flo-designed' sleeping bags to the refugees in Bosnia.

In Mesa, Arizona, they have just completed 2,000 sleeping bags. In Fort Ogden, Florida, they have made one bag every week for five years. Flo believes that more than 100,000 sleeping bags have been made since 1985.

Eleanor Dugan and Becky Gordon co-founded the San Francisco group. By avocation, they are both quilters. They have gained national recognition exhibiting their quilts in regional shows. But today, they are committed to making sleeping bags. Becky said: "It’s simple. If you can tie a shoe lace, you can help make a sleeping bag. And a sleeping bag can save the life of a homeless person."

The informal group meets in Eleanor’s home, which looks like a warehouse. Hilton Hotels recently donated 200 bedspreads and mattress pads, filling her living room almost to the ceiling. Her dining room contains a large cutting table and a sewing machine. And there’s a sewing machine in the kitchen. "It is not Martha Stewart living*," said Eleanor, "but these bags are literally the difference between life and death to some of the homeless." Eleanor speaks and gives demonstrations at churches, schools, clubs, organizations, and the San Francisco County jail.

At a recent Bronx Community Center demonstration, Flo was expecting volunteers to come and make bags and distribute them to the homeless. But homeless families arrived on the scene, including children. They spent the day making bags. When they left, they took the bags and slept in them that night.

Benjamin Creme has confirmed that the homeless man who came to Flo’s aid near the New York subway station in 1983 was the Master Jesus. When Flo heard this, she responded: "I believe it! The basis of my life is in Christ. Our work does not belong to any particular denomination. It is open to everyone. We appeal to people who understand the suffering of other people and have the ability to reach out."

* Martha Stewart is a popular proponent of gracious living, American style.

From the May 1997 issue of Share International
From: http://www.share-international.org/ARCHIVES/social-justice/sj_jssleepingbags.htm