Changes

I think I am not alone in saying that design has a way of changing throughout the creation process. Add time and knowledge to the mix and the result can be very different from the original thought or idea.

When I first started quilting, I saw a quilt in a magazine that I wanted to make. Knowing nothing about quilting designs, I was drawn purely to the array of orange colours used. I spent a long time collecting oranges and years later began to cut half-square triangles. By then I had gained knowledge and developed my preferred style of improv—a polar opposite of half-square triangles. The quilt would have to undergo change to reflect my style.

Then news of the graves at Residential Schools swarmed the media, and I knew that this would be the intended purpose. I put a version of a log cabin in the quilt. Unlike traditional quilts, where the red centre signifies the hearth of the home, I did it in purples, off-centred and obliterated, to reflect the loss each family would have felt with their children gone.

Though alternating light and dark half-square triangles create the design, there are hidden solid blocks. They may be hard to see, but if we look closely they are there—similar to the issues at some school locations. The white triangles are for the viewer to decipher personally. Some may see a feather, or perhaps smoke, both integral to First Nations culture.