Building a collection of quilts based on local Windrush experiences.
Windrush. Fading away with memories that
will be lost. It’s a history we should record. This is a blog of how my
pieces are building.
The series so far:
1) Rachel – Most Racist Was In White Church 2) Marcia –
Validation 3) The Background’s Too Strong, it Needs to be Whiter 4)
Jeff Brown – You Try To Do Your Best 5) George Saunders
A narrative of resilience, courage, and perseverance.
Threads of Memory – Windrush portrait #1, Rachel Thomas. “Most Racist Was In White Church”.
OK, so not everyone likes my quilts as they are not what you might
normally expect to see and are sometimes quite challenging, but in my
small studio tucked away in the middle of a bustling town, I try to pour
my heart and soul into what I do – art quilts that hopefully speak
volumes, in this case about a history often overlooked. At the moment
I’m trying to stitch together quilts that celebrate the experiences of
Windrush elders who journeyed to the UK in the mid century and onwards.
There will be 5 in the series at the exhibition at Leamington Art
Gallery in Jan 2025. The original inspiration was a collection of 3
quilts in the gallery archives, detailing experiences of life before and
after Windrush. One of these quilts will hang alongside mine. As part
of my reasearch I was given a link to a video that shows the elders and
their families talking about their experiences of life in the UK and the
changes they had to make, and their problems adapting to us and us to
them. The words on the quilts are transcribed from this video. I visited
some them at a local church community lunch and chatted, eat, and took
photos. Rachel took some persuading to let me do a piece on her, but she
eventually let me loose!
At the heart of this first quilt, Rachel’s quilt, sits a powerful
image: an elderly woman, her weathered hands resting gently on her stick
and in her lap. Beside her, a table adorned with a quintessentially
British meal – fish and chips, a symbol of familiarity and adaptation in
a new land.
But it’s not just the visual elements that tell the story. Behind the
central figure, I’ve written the spoken words of Rachel, trying to
capture her voice against the heavily free machine stitched vibrant
cloth background. Each stitch enfolds these fragments of history,
hopefully weaving together a narrative of resilience, courage, and
perseverance. But it’s odd because that’s not all that’s going on.
As you travel across the quilt, you might wonder why Rachel’s face
and hands are painted in rich acrylics, trying to capture detail in
every line and crease, firmly with us, but her clothing begins to fade
away into the background. It’s a deliberate choice by me – a metaphor
for the gradual erasure of identity and culture faced by many immigrants
as they assimilate into a new society.
Through these quilts I’m hoping to preserve these stories, to ensure
that the experiences of the Windrush generation are not forgotten or
overshadowed. Each stitch is a testament to their struggles and
triumphs, a reminder of the indomitable spirit that carried them across
oceans and into uncertain futures.
I guess for me these quilts are more than just a piece of fabric –
they’re a living tribute, a history that demands to be recorded and
remembered. I’m trying for works of art that speak volumes without ever
uttering a word.
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