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. 

Full & Unfulfilled

Cameron Darnell Lamb

"Father, son, brother, cousin & beloved friend

Sunrise June 14, 1993 - Sunset December 3, 2019"

 

    Father of three young boys, who was a mechanic, loved working with his hands, offered helping hands in his community, was fun, loving... and was loved.

    There are hands (representing his) holding hearts with his boys' names, symbols for his love of Chevys and the Kansas City Chiefs, twenty-six solid stars (for each year of his life),

 

 

...and fifty-three unfilled and unfulfilled stars for the years that Cameron will not have (The average life span is 79).

 

 

    I kept Cameron, his children, mother, and loved ones in my heart while stitching.  Especially his mother's heartbreak of having her son become a memory.  I hope it holds the love he gave and that they held for him.

    Please visit the Social Justice Sewing Academy Remembrance Project here to learn more about this powerful project and organization, and how you might contribute.  

    (Click on the "Cameron Lamb" or "Social Justice Sewing Academy" categories below to read more about this project.)

Cakes

    Another hill.

    While falling asleep on the first night of March, I thought about cake.  Maybe it was because it's my birthday month?  Anyhow, a cake memory came, and then one cake led to another... layers of them, odd slices of stories, some delicious to recall, others heavy with the wrong ingredients.

    Yesterday, still thinking about cakes, I painted a blue one, with pink sprinkles.

    And then remembered that Maira Kalman, who I greatly admire, once wrote a book about the cakes in her life.  It was ordered up from the library, and then the rest of the day was spent listening to all of the recordings I could find of her.  Gosh, she's swell.

      While listening, stars were stitched.  The last one just before dinner.  My shoulders and eyes ached from hunching over and focusing on trying to get straight edges on those points.  Going along star to star, every so often I'd count to see which star I was on, and then try to imagine Cameron at that age...four, nine, twelve, seventeen, and twenty-six, his last year.  Three years older than Blue.  At 26 I was working my way out of a dark time... just starting to find myself, a place in the world, beginning to imagine a future.  26.

    Another cake this morning.  Cakes are like hills.  Hills are like cakes.

    "Dread and delight at the same time.  That is the truth about being alive."  Maira Kalman

Far & Near

    (Apologies for yet another marathon post.  Someday I'll get back to posting regularly and briefly.)

    Thinking about hills, again.  A lifetime of thoughts and memories of them.  Using Deb's threads to wind a story through... The front hill is from her dye pot, too.  The sky is from a class a long while back.

    This week I've been missing people, groups of people, faces.  I try to smile at people with my eyes, hoping that they know that it's an effort towards connection.

    Continuing on Cameron's block using Susan Fletcher Conway's tutorial here for stars.  They're not easy for me, requiring really good light and focus, but I wanted larger filled-in stars.  They're kind of wonky, but hopefully, with a few steps back, they will shine together.  There will be 26 of them, one for each year of his life.  

    Hands representing his, holding the names of his three young boys.  Grateful for Tina's gift of a rainbow of cloth to choose from for the hearts, and wishing that I had Liz's writing-with-thread skills.

    Another day trip with and to my friend's sweet house.  She's received both of her vaccinations, which added even more ease to our time together.

    The views from the ferry were amazing that morning.  The mountains seemed so big and close.  About fifteen minutes after this photo was taken, we were crossing this bridge.

    I gave her my most recently knitted socks and she put them on straight away.  Happily they fit.

    It was a beautiful day, including a stop at a nursery.  She studied various plants, knowing exactly what she wanted to look at (and the scientific names of everything).  I pointed out the fritillaria, "You had some in your yard when you lived across the street."  She was surprised that I remembered the name.  The word fritillaria is a fun one, making it easy to recall, not to mention that the checkerboard flowers are unforgettable and magical.

    It's a marvel how a four inch container can hold a whole complex beautiful world.  This is just the feeling I want to stitch into my little story squares.

    Sitting in the sunlight stitching moonlight and starlight was delightful.

    It was approaching dusk, so the lights were lit this time.  Still want to come back at night to see them really glow.

Quick catch-up & a deep Thank You

"Moonset"

    The edge of a napkin dyed by Deb made for a fabulous wave (& her purple cloth, too).

    So many nightmares- dead bodies, assaults, old jobs.

    Things are busy, mostly in my head, and computer time is more limited these days.  It seems that by the time K. is finished with it, it's too late for my eyes and brain.

    Working on Cameron's block.  This was hard to make- not my comfort zone in stitching, or the racism behind the symbol.  I sent Blue this photo saying that my making this was proof that the world's gone off kilter.  "Racist and sports?!"  He agreed.  But the Kansas City Chiefs were his favorite team.  There is a video of him having a great time at a game two days before he was killed.

    Moon was impressed that he actually recognized it, "You made these?!  Good job!"   Cameron was also known as a Chevy man.  I'm really looking forward to getting to the star stitching.

    The boys have had some growing pains this week.

    This little house in progress is love- in home, velvet and raw ragged stitching... started after talking to Blue yesterday.  After he said that he wanted to come home.  After I exclaimed, "Yes!  Just get on a plane, we'll figure the virus stuff out, just come home!"  Just wanting to wrap my arms around him.  And then sense kicked in (for him first). 

    While they grapple with big things and emotions, it's hard to remember that they're almost grown, 18 and 22, and there's not much we really can/should do except listen, and remind them that we're here and on their side.  I guess that I've had some growing pains, too.

    A couple of days ago it was this blog's ten year anniversary.  It was started with a wanting to be a part of Jude's Patchwork Beast workshop circle.  It's been a doorway to connection- with the circle, my making, and mostly myself.  Thank you for coming along on the journey.

Holding memories

    Just the "C" left to do, and then on to the hands.  Cameron was known as a "tinkerer"- a mechanic who was good with his hands.   My plan is to stitch symbols onto the palms- representing people and things that were important to him.

    I photographed Moon's hands as a reference, and then traced them for patterns.  With a pencil in one hand, and the other on top of his, holding it flat, I was filled with gratitude at being able to touch my boy, and also with so much grief for Cameron's mother who will never touch her son again.  She has said, "I hate that my son is a memory."

Cameron Lamb 1993-2019

    Cameron Lamb with his three sons. 

    Father, son, brother, and beloved friend, Cameron was killed backing into his driveway by an undercover Kansas City, MO police officer over a traffic violation.  Two officers entered the property without warrant or consent, with guns drawn, killing Cameron within moments.  One officer, who was closer, reported that he did not see a gun.  The second officer said that Cameron used his left hand to reach for and point a gun at the closer officer, necessitating the need to shoot him four times.  Cameron was right handed and did not have full use of his left hand from an injury years before.

     While the officer who killed Cameron has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action for recklessly causing his death, many questions still remain unanswered.

    This is the background for Cameron's block, part of the Social Justice Sewing Academy Remembrance Project.  (More about this project and the other empowering work of this wonderful organization here.)   After hours of reading articles, looking at photos and watching videos of Cameron holding, feeding, kissing, loving his boys, and with family and friends, it's his children and mother that stay with me.  One of his sons asked, "How long will my dad be dead?" 

    I hope to honor Cameron's life, spirit and loved ones with this piece.  More to come...

skies & writing

    Still dreaming in pink skies.

    Some dipping in blue.

        Yesterday I realized that I had grabbed the wrong red thread in the middle of the quote on the SJSA block.  But, even with an opportunity to redo some of the words, I'm noting that my handwriting isn't any better in stitch than it is with a pen.  Still more work to do on this.  How I wish I could sit side by side with the young artist and do this together.  This is an exercise in letting go.

Imagine having to prove you're a Person

    This week was hot for here (which makes me grumpy), I decided to rearrange/clean out the studio (it got so much worse in the process), and I sliced my pointer finger (right where the needle sits while stitching).  It's cooled off a bit, the room is almost better, and I can hold a needle again...so some progress.  

    A new block by a young artist created with @sjsacademy arrived.  Her message honors Chief Standing Bear, a Ponca chief and Native American civil rights leader. In 1879, he was the first to successfully argue in the U.S. District Court that Native Americans are "persons within the meaning of the law."

    The blocks arrive with the pieces tacked down with craft glue.  My job is to secure the fabrics, embellish and add context to the piece.  The base cloth felt too white and thin to work on, so I added a layer of muslin around the center design.  It was cloth that had gone into a fading indigo vat so it has just a touch of blue here and there.  It makes me think of the sky.

    The artist wished for Sitting Bull's quote, "I myself would rather die an Indian than live a white man."  I'm wishing for Liz's skill with stitching words.

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.