45 - Women's Craft Changing the World
There are many quilters in my family. They may not tell the family history through their patterns, but their passion brings the quilts to the forefront as artistry, skills, and gifts to others. This craft became a strong story that I felt compelled to bring to this story of women's history. It is passion. It is community. It is our world to be shared by all.
The crafts of women, rooted in the survival of their communities and families, have created a cultural symbol protecting people and history. The art of quilting is more than just a home skill to be a historical keeper or unifying tool for a community.
In my research of New Mexico, I advocated to find a woman that led through the “Walk of the Navajo”. The records, especially of woman, are very limited until you reach into the history of alternative sources, in this case the legacies memorialized in Susan Hudson’s quilts. A member of the Kin Yaa aanii (Towering House People) Clan of the Navajo Nation, her grandmother and mother were sent to Anglo-Saxon boarding schools, and were trained to make quilts. They passed the skills onto Susan who lacked in other artistic skills, and she set out to make pictorial quilts to honor her family, and they were recognized through American Art museums for her “ledger quilts” depicting the stories of the Navajo.
Susan Hudson’s well known quilt, “Stars Among the Shunkaa Wakan” is a Plains-style star representing day and night on opposing sides. The galloping ponies and names of her ancestors represent those that endured the Long Walk in 1864. The symbols, colors, organizations, and depiction of the story told combine to tell a full history of the people able to be shared with generations to follow.
“After the buffalo disappeared,” Hudson continued, “our women were forced to learn sewing in boarding schools. But look at what we are doing with it now. We are taking it a step further and using it to tell our own stories so we will never forget. I am grateful for being taught this skill, and I’m grateful to my ancestors for all they did. They were strong survivors. If they hadn’t survived, I wouldn’t be here.”
Communities frequently come together to show the strength of the larger whole. Groups come together to build a quilt together in “Friendship Quilts” types where stitching pieces from many create a connection of the people.
A memorial quilt brings people together to share in the thoughts and bonds needed to cope with the hardest aspects of life. During the height of loss in the 1980s, people that died were not allowed funerals because of social stigma or people refusing to handle the remains. These people were not given a memorial site. On a very large scale, the AIDS Memorial Quilt was founded in 1987, and became the largest piece of community folk art in the world. Each block is 12’ x 12’ with eight 3x6 foot panels, the typical size of a grave. There are more than 48,000 panels to represent more than 94,000 lives lost to AIDS.
In 2020, the quilt is moving to a permanent home in San Francisco, and records of the quilt are available from the Library of Congress. The goal of the quilt is to teach generations to come of the people that suffered. The story of the AIDS Crisis and movement is a story of social justice “invoking compassion and dispelling discrimination and stigma.” People each sewed the panels to heal from the loss and heartbreak of their significant losses.
The crafts of women, rooted in the survival of their communities and families, have created a cultural symbol protecting people and history. The art of quilting is more than just a home skill to be a historical keeper or unifying tool for a community.
In my research of New Mexico, I advocated to find a woman that led through the “Walk of the Navajo”. The records, especially of woman, are very limited until you reach into the history of alternative sources, in this case the legacies memorialized in Susan Hudson’s quilts. A member of the Kin Yaa aanii (Towering House People) Clan of the Navajo Nation, her grandmother and mother were sent to Anglo-Saxon boarding schools, and were trained to make quilts. They passed the skills onto Susan who lacked in other artistic skills, and she set out to make pictorial quilts to honor her family, and they were recognized through American Art museums for her “ledger quilts” depicting the stories of the Navajo.
Susan Hudson’s well known quilt, “Stars Among the Shunkaa Wakan” is a Plains-style star representing day and night on opposing sides. The galloping ponies and names of her ancestors represent those that endured the Long Walk in 1864. The symbols, colors, organizations, and depiction of the story told combine to tell a full history of the people able to be shared with generations to follow.
“After the buffalo disappeared,” Hudson continued, “our women were forced to learn sewing in boarding schools. But look at what we are doing with it now. We are taking it a step further and using it to tell our own stories so we will never forget. I am grateful for being taught this skill, and I’m grateful to my ancestors for all they did. They were strong survivors. If they hadn’t survived, I wouldn’t be here.”
Communities frequently come together to show the strength of the larger whole. Groups come together to build a quilt together in “Friendship Quilts” types where stitching pieces from many create a connection of the people.
A memorial quilt brings people together to share in the thoughts and bonds needed to cope with the hardest aspects of life. During the height of loss in the 1980s, people that died were not allowed funerals because of social stigma or people refusing to handle the remains. These people were not given a memorial site. On a very large scale, the AIDS Memorial Quilt was founded in 1987, and became the largest piece of community folk art in the world. Each block is 12’ x 12’ with eight 3x6 foot panels, the typical size of a grave. There are more than 48,000 panels to represent more than 94,000 lives lost to AIDS.
In 2020, the quilt is moving to a permanent home in San Francisco, and records of the quilt are available from the Library of Congress. The goal of the quilt is to teach generations to come of the people that suffered. The story of the AIDS Crisis and movement is a story of social justice “invoking compassion and dispelling discrimination and stigma.” People each sewed the panels to heal from the loss and heartbreak of their significant losses.
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