Mapping Memories

Greetings from my January 2022 residency at Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, Colorado! Here I am at the Colorado National Monument.

I spent the month at Elsewhere making a quilt that I’m calling Mapping Memories (sneak peek)

Inspiration:

In March 2020, I started going on way more walks than I ever had before. And not only that, but I was going on walks primarily within a few mile radius of my home in Philly. At this point these walks were generally the only reason I left my house.

I was given a new perspective on the neighborhood; I practiced identifying trees while watching them go from bare to bud to bloom, I noticed details on the sidewalks, and met neighbors. I went swimming in the summer and cross country skiing in the parks in the winter.

These walks were space for me to process the pandemic unfolding before me, and simply to pass the time. Days, weeks and months passed and I barely knew what had happened. A large portion of what is now the past year and a half is marked by these near-daily walks.

I wanted to make a quilt based on these walks - I sorted through photos I had taken and designed quilt squares for each one - drawings based directly on the photos, with the main colors and shapes, inspired by topographical maps and symbols used in maps. I thought a lot about how symbols are used, and what it means to turn a memory into a shape. I thought about the functions of maps, and how this quilt might function as a “wayfinder”. I read about Pierre Bourdieu’s use of the term habitus, and how he used it to refer to knowing a space through routine (like walking!)

I see these quilt squares as a sort of memory map of this time period. A symbol created for each location, my memories embedded in each one:

Watching buildings get torn down and rebuilt, with the ghosts of previous buildings embedded on them, a common sight in Philadelphia

Sunsets
Birthdays

Interesting textures that take many passes to notice

Process:

I traced all my drawings onto brown paper and used those as patterns - if the lines were small and straight enough, I would sew the paper directly onto the fabric to try to get the most precise lines that I could. In most cases, I cut out each individual shape and used it as a pattern piece.

A trick I learned for finding color values - take a picture of them in black and white! It’s much easier to tell what is a light, medium or dark shade. Here are all my little color swatches for some of the quilt squares.

Aaaaand here it is! A whole quilt top! The final decision, which was by far the hardest part for me, was deciding what pattern to quilt (the part where you sew all the layers together) everything together with. I played with making samples of a variety of maps - the topography of Philly, the riverways of Philly, the pattern from a sewer grate.

I still couldn’t decide so I took a break and went cross country skiing at Grand Mesa.

Finally I decided to go with a map of the geology of the region. Here’s what it looks like quilted!