STITCHING FOR CHARITY

Always wishing always for busy hands, I’m happy to share my work with charitable projects. I’m open to new initiatives. Contact me if you hear of that need work

Violet Protest

From the website: “The Violet Protest is a public effort to send 50 hand-made
​textile squares to each and every member of Congress
​in support of these core American values:

​• Respect for the other • Citizenship • Compromise
• Country over party and corporate influence
• Courage • Candor • Compassion • Creativity

Whether we weave, knit, crochet, quilt, or embroider all 26,750 of these squares — through this social action, and from every corner of America; we as makers of all political persuasions, believe we can employ our willing spirit and our talents to contribute to healing divisions that threaten our country. ​This collection of textile squares will be first displayed at Phoenix Art Museum, in the Spring of 2021, before they are sent to the new 117th Congress by late 2021.

Focused on the values we hold dear as Americans, rather than any political beliefs, the color violet symbolizes the literal combination of red and blue, long held as symbols of our nation's differing ideologies. Our common goal is to send a physical message of friendly protest through this colossal visual expression to demonstrate that if we as citizens are ​willing ​to come together, so then must our elected officials.”

In January 2021 I made 5 squares using cotton cloth and thread dyed in the requested colors stitched with words from the brief. I’ve been working on improving my stitched lettering and am not happy with how it looks on this larger scale. Always something new to learn and explore.

Learn how you can participate.

25 Million Stitches: One Stitch, One Refugee

From the website: “Thanks to our amazing community of global stitchers, we reached 25 million stitches!

25Million Stitches Community art installation will come together into a single, striking fiber arts display, a dazzling tapestry of each stitcher’s personal expression of solidarity and support for the refugees. Since the launch of the project in May of 2019, the response has grown from participants mainly from California to 48 states and 30 countries across six continents. Our upcoming installations will be hosted by: Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento, The Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts and Texas Technical University Museum in Lubbock, Texas.

The world is in flight. 25 million people* across the globe have been forced to flee their homelands as a consequence of genocide, war, poverty, natural disasters, targeted violence, and other grave threats. They leave behind everything they’ve known and possessed in order to live; they face immense struggles, misfortunes, and perils on their journey; and, through it all, survival, much less successful resettlement, remains but the slimmest hope.

How does making 25 million stitches help refugees? We believe that this project is a way for us to engage with this global crisis instead of ignoring it. And even though no single stitch can fully represent an individual, the act of stitching and the resulting work will help bring attention to the scale of the crisis. Two objectives of the project are:

1. To engage as many people as possible to raise awareness of the global refugee crisis.

2. To amass 25 million stitches to visually represent the sheer volume of this astronomical figure of refugees.

The current global pandemic is truly a difficult time for many, but now more than ever, it's essential to come together to support those who need it most, however we can.

We know that these panels take a tremendous amount of time and effort, and we can't wait to show the finished result. However, due to the current situation and in line with public health advice, we have made the difficult decision to postpone our Sacramento Show at Verge. Liv Moe, the director at Verge, and I decided on a time frame for the installation to maximize the number of visitors and the impact of the show. The new opening date for the 25 Million Stitches Project is June 12th, 2021, a year from our original date.

Our first full installation will be at the Verge Center for the Arts, 625 S Street, Sacramento, CA
June 12 -August 22nd, 2021
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 12, 5–7pm”

I stitched my panel, #1688A, in December 2019.

70273 PROJECT

A Worldwide collaborative art project commemorating the lives of the 70,273 physically and mentally disabled people murdered by German Nazis in 1940 - 41 led by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers

Jeanne writes on her website: “Between January 1940 and August 1941, 70,273 physically and mentally disabled people – men, women, teens, boys, and girls – were murdered by the Nazis. Though they never even laid eyes on the disabled person they were evaluating, the Nazi doctors read the medical files and, if from the words on the page, the person was deemed “unfit” or an “economic burden on society”, the doctor placed a red X at the bottom of the form. Three doctors were to read each medical file, and when two of them made a red X on the page, the disabled person’s fate was sealed. Most were murdered within hours.

I will commemorate these 70,273 voiceless, powerless people who were so callously and casually murdered by gathering 70,273 blocks of white fabric (representing innocence and the paper the doctors read), each bearing two red X’s (representing one person), and I will stitch them together into quilts.”

She enlisted the help of sewists from around the world. The response was astounding. I lent a hand by stitching some squares and piecing a few quilts. Visit the website if you’d like to learn how you can participate.

I’ve stitched a few blocks, photos of which I’ve mislaid, and pieced four quilts.

DRAW THE LINE

I stitched up a 10" square of cotton dyed by my daughter, Delaney Clark, in response to a notice on the Textile Arts Center blog:

"On March 2nd, 2016, the United States Supreme Court will hear the most important reproductive rights case in almost 25 years. The decision will determine whether Texas can shut down nearly all abortion care providers in the state and prevent 5.4 million women of reproductive age from accessing the healthcare they need.

Using craft as activism, artist Chi Nguyen — in partnership with the Textile Arts Center and the Center for Reproductive Rights — is holding a series of stitch-ins to make physical the number of women whose right to safe and legal abortion is currently at risk. With each line representing an individual woman, the 5.4 Million and Counting project is only finished when all 5.4 million lines are embroidered.

The public is invited to Draw the Line by joining the embroidery process at the stitch-ins, or by sending in their own 10×10” swatches with as many tally marks (卌) as they would like to embroider. All swatches will be patched onto a larger quilt to be used at the Supreme Court rally on March 2nd, 2016." 

I stitched 110 of the 5.4 million.