My students love to hear stories about the lives of the Quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama. Their quilting knowlege was handed down from mothers to daughters since before the civil war. They just wanted to keep their children warm with scraps of worn out clothing, but their aesthetics were similar to those of modernist painting giants. Once someone recognized the aesthetic value, they were exhibiting their work in museums across the country. The majority of the talent in the world goes unnoticed, but it is not the fame that makes something beautiful. It's the work itself, and of course, the love that goes into it.
After talking the purpose and construction of real quilts, each student started making their own quilt squares to contribute to a class quilt, except this one would be made from metal.
How to fill a square? It was a problem to be solved, and the room was full of solutions: wire, pipe cleaners, beads, buttons, tape, upholstery swatches; if we had it, they could use it. Students chatted about their day as they twisted and taped, and strung things together. This isn't the kind of quilt you'd want to curl up in, but I hope the process gave my students a sense of how communities come together in the form of quilting bees.
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