My friend Joyce and I went to PIQF last weekend. Usually this show is very well attended, wall to wall people. Instead of fighting crowds of avid quilters looking for just the right fat quarter of fabric, there were hardly any people there. It made it very easy to take photos of the beautiful quilts that are always in attendance there.
Our Cutting Edge Quilt Group had a special exhibit entitled "Personal Journey with Racism". Each member created a quilt to express their individual experience with encountering racism. Below are some pictures from that exhibit.
On the left is Gay's quilt called Boxes and Kathy's called "Strange Fruit", based on the song
sung by Nina Simone and others about black bodies hanging from trees in the south.
Mine is on the left, entitled, "I'm Just Trying to Fit In" about racial integration in schools in the 70's. On the right is Jeanne S.'s showing the ratio of Blacks to Whites
in places she has lived and hopes for the future.
On the left is Paula's Quilt about her growing up in racially mixed Detroit and on the Right is Andi's about Redlining, which is a racial discriminatory practice in which lenders systematically
denied loans to people of color.
On the left is Sara's, which is a very moving piece regarding the discovery in old family wills, that her ancestors owned slaves for generations.
On the right is another one of Jeanne S.'s about Asian Hate.
