Quilt Patterns, Peace on Earth, blue green Print

Quilt Patterns My great grandmother made quilts, which are still in the family; I can admire the stitching on her quilts and wonder what each bit of fabric had been, in its earlier life, or what it was left over from the making of; before it was part of the quilt. I feel a strong connection to the past in these quilts, and I greatly admire the collective work that went into making them. I imagine a younger version of my great grandmother, who I only knew as a very old woman, gathered around with her friends perhaps, stitching and laughing and talking. I wonder what room in her house had space for a quilt frame, or would they set it up in a community hall or church basement? I know very little about the day to day aspects of her life when she was my age, yet her existence seems vastly different than mine. And modern quilts are different too, quilting isn't recycling, and it's rarely a collective or collaborative. I feel sad to think that collective work, quilts made collaboratively by the hands of many, like the quilts passed down through my family, may become a thing of the past. The Quilt Patterns series of paper collages is a celebration of the collective and collaborative work of the women who came before me... the quilters, weavers, and collaborative fiber artists. The collective work in service of family, friends and wider community, the collaborative work done to benefit the place you live; this is a way I can connect my lived experience with the life of my great grandmother. The Quilt Patterns series is about connection and community as well as collaboration and collective work. It's made using assorted recycled papers, maps, circuit diagrams, security envelopes, etc. Quilt patterns were selected through a collaborative process with women friends who quilt, and technology not available to my great grandmother. The analogue paper collage was scanned on a flatbed scanner to produce the digital image presented here.