Yes, Comfort

A local artist offered her studio in 2019 for friends to meet together to work on individual projects in community. Living in the Arkansas Ozarks, I loved gathering with talented women. As Covid set in I worked at home instead, but discovered online that Liza Lou was hosting an “Apartogether Comfort Quilt” pandemic project using in-house materials. I’d already chosen my fabrics for the memories of people I loved, the coral silk background brought home for me from my daughter’s teaching stint in Thailand, Aunt Martha’s rose silk skirt passed on to me because I loved the fabric, velvets from old pillows my mother made, a velour robe I’d worn in high school. My quilt grew into an affirmation of hope and continuity through a dark winter, and when I finished on Memorial Day 2020, it marked for me a remembrance of the millions of lives lost in Covid time. I was so struck by an uncanny resemblance of my design to Jeffrey Gibson’s army blanket piece, it moved me to share mine, as well.

Contributed by: Marti Olesen
Created by: Marti Olesen
Origin: It came from old clothes and remnants stored for years in drawers, saved for a some day project.