handstories

Stitching Stolen Lives

    Stitching Stolen Lives: The Social Justice Sewing Academy Remembrance Project by Sara Trail and Teresa Duryea Wong.
    This arrived last week!  A  beautiful powerful book sharing the stories of lives lost due to social injustice, quilt blocks and quilts created to honor them, and the empowering community work of The Social Justice Sewing Academy.

    This is Sara Trail, one of the authors, founder of The Social Justice Sewing Academy, quilter, a powerhouse for Good and Justice in this world, and only 26 years old!  This young woman has already done more than I can even dream of accomplishing in my lifetime.

    I'm very honored to have the blocks that I stitched in honor of Michael Brown and Cameron Lamb included.  (You can read more about the making of these blocks by clicking on the "Social Justice Sewing Academy" category at the bottom of this post.)

    You can order your own copy here (100% of royalties are being donated to the Social Justice Sewing Academy).  Please visit the SJSA website to learn more about their important empowering community work. 

in Remembrance and Hope

In remembrance of Michael Brown (1996-2014)

Social Justice Sewing Academy Remembrance Project 

    Next it will travel to those who will quilt and stitch it and other blocks into "activist art banners for local and national activist organizations who have requested creative statements to be publicly displayed that represent solidarity as well as remembrance. This partnership will create a visual statement to memorialize those who have been unjustly murdered by police, racial vigilantism, or as a result of their gender, sexual orientation and other forms of identity politics. These artivism blocks will honor the lives of individuals through symbolism and portrait. Their names and identities will be displayed during community activism events reminding the world that their lives mattered."

    (Please visit the link above to learn more about the project and other empowering work of this wonderful organization.  This line in their description strikes my heart... "When you take a step back and look at the sheer size of the exhibit you realize the tragic fact that you will run out of volunteers long before you run out of names.")

    That little silver starred blue patch in the middle right is a scrap of mama love.  A bit of the cloth that was used in both Blue's and Moon's baby quilts.  A gift from K. when I was pregnant with Blue, and finally feeling safe enough to hope he would really come.  Now, ages 22 and almost 18, my boys are here, filled with ideas and hopes, with their whole lives ahead of them.

    Michael should be a 24 year old young man now, he should be making the music he loved, working at a job that his college education would have led to, hanging out with friends, living and filling his life with ideas and hopes.  

    This time of stitching this block and thinking on what I've been able to learn about Michael have been a journey.  Reading the stories about Michael's killing, the two sides of it- He had problems/he had promise, he jaywalked and shoplifted/he was joking around, he charged the officer/he had his hands up and called "Don't shoot!"....  It's easy to get lost in the "He said/He saids" of it all.  But they don't matter.

     What is true is that he was an unarmed human being who is now dead.

     There is so much to muddle through in anti-racist work, inside and out.  As a mama, a white woman and a human being, I worried about getting this square Right.   Not for me, but in honor of Michael and those who loved him.  I know that it isn't possible, there is no "Right" in any of this. I'm learning that it's important to being willing to be uncomfortable, unsure, wrong, and to keep trying, to do better for Michael, for those who loved and lost him, and for so many others... for all of us.

rocking in the forth & back

    Almost all day, every day, for the last week, six days left.  Things have been stitched, unstitched, rearranged, restitched...

    The wings became much bigger than planned for.

    Making the letters not fit as expected.

    Tomorrow more cloud work and connections.

    And finishing the "B".

    And then the stars...

Wings for Michael

    Thank you, everyone for all of the kind supportive comments on yesterday's post.  I love how we hold hands in this circle.

    Last night cloud and wing shapes were basted on.

    This morning I woke up early and wanted to get right to stitching- to see if the ideas might work, and with a little anxiety about getting this done by the July 8th deadline.

    Feathers were basted all day long, with thoughts of Michael.  Thinking of the cloud angel he saw.  Imagining him in wings, rising to a better world where he might be free.

    Moon looked at Michael's photos, listened to his story, and is taking an interest in this piece.  That does my heart good.  He'll turn eighteen next month, the same age Michael was when he was killed.  This project breaks and fills my heart.

Michael Orlandus Darrion Brown (1996-2014)

    A few weeks ago, I volunteered do more stitching for the Social Justice Sewing Academy, this time for their remembrance project for the victims of violence and their families.  When I signed up, the projects were just being formed, I really thought I was signing up to work on a lap quilt of a victim's clothing for their family.  Something cozy and comforting, but said I was willing to do whatever I could within my skill set.

    On Saturday a request to make a square in honor of Michael Brown came.  Michael was shot to death by a police officer in Ferguson, MO, he was just eighteen.  Upon reading the email, I was overcome, overwhelmed, and sure that I couldn't do it.  Also, on instagram, I had seen the first finished square for this project.  It was beautiful and expertly created- a photograph in cloth.  I really couldn't do that.  I replied that while I felt humble and grateful for the opportunity to participate, I was not sure I had the skills required to do Michael or the project justice.

    While waiting for the reply (which was lovely and encouraging), I began reading everything I could find about Michael.  At first, I was done in by stories of the shooting, but then found this NYT article and a few others that shared more about Michael's story. 

    What I kept coming back to is that he was just a kid.  Born two years before Blue.  Like Blue, Michael was born in May, 6' 4", loved video games, music and hanging out with friends.  He had just graduated from high school, with plans to start college in a few weeks. 

    Earlier that summer he had called his dad and stepmom in the middle of the night to describe the after-storm clouds that he was looking at.  He said that he saw an angel in them, being chased by Satan and running into the face of God.  "Now I believe." he told them.

    So, with a mama's heart, I've started a square for Michael, and will try to hold all of this.

    Michael Brown was just a kid, who had hopes and an openness to wonders in this world.