I finished piecing the couch throw aka “leftover blanket” this morning. I love all the polka dots and the jazzes of red. Two shirts and one Crate and Barrel napkin are included.
Meanwhile it is nasty outside. Cold and rainy.
I’m preparing a password-protected blog post to be able to share book cover ideas with a designer. Let me know if you’d like to take a peek. Any and all input is welcome.
This is one of many Middle Passage quilts that I’ve made over the years. I began it a long time ago (2013?) while reading about the transatlantic slave trade but didn’t bind it until last week.
All the usual reasons for delay pertained, prime among them that I am a better starter than finisher. I lose track. Things pile up. But also this: early on a reader of this blog suggested that I was not “staying in my lane.”
All these years later, I say fuck that. Not fuck her, but fuck that. Fuck that. (Cultural appropriation discussed in part here and here and again here).
I will never tell Black women what to think or how to feel, but it certainly matters to me that learning about the history of slavery has made me a more informed, more sensitive person. A better citizen, a better reader of novels, a better writer, a stronger and more informed consumer of American culture and politics.
Before continuing, I have to thank the cadre of readers here, mostly older white women like myself, who have let me know over the years that what I share about American history and race is meaningful to them. It’s not that I set out to teach per se, but by sharing what I’m learning and having you along for the ride, the learning gets amplified and transforms what would otherwise be a solitary process into a communal one. It really matters to me. YOU really matter to me.
I like quilts to stand on their own, leaving interpretations up to the viewer but I thought in this case it might enhance the experience of looking if I were to explain the visual connections between fabric choices and the Middle Passage. So here goes.
The triangular shapes refer to sails. I suppose they could also refer to the triangular shape of the trading routes but I didn’t think of that until just now.
Swatches of indigo, bubble motifs, fish prints, and a black swirly-spiral print call to mind the Atlantic Ocean.
The half-circle black and silver print (at the bottom, above) looks African to me. The black and deep green hand-dyed swatch IS African.
The inclusion of a map print refers to the shores at either end of the Middle Passage — say, Sierra Leone on one side and Charleston on the other.
The brown stripes and the green lozenges both refer to the ship itself. The brown stripe is suggestive of the planks, while the green lozenges call to mind those illustrations that depicted Black bodies packed in the hold below deck.
One reason it’s important to focus on the Middle Passage now and again is because the number of people who died en route is often overlooked when relating the costs of slavery. It’s a huge number.
A conservative estimate puts lives lost en route at 1.8 to 2 million. Another 1.8 million died while housed in the barracoons awaiting transport. Another 1.5 million died during the first year of laboring here.
So one way to look at this is — roughly 14 million Africans were kidnapped to yield 9 million slaves.*
It is hard to wrap one’s mind around these numbers.
Check out the Equal Justice Initiative’s website — it highlights, among other things, the lesser known slave-practices and sources of slave-related profit in New England.
Below is another Middle Passage quilt. You’ll notice many of the fabrics are the same.
I’ve linked to these novel-adjacent pages before, but here again is a kind of warm up exercise done in the style of Colum McCann and describing the Middle Passage. It’s called Water Was.
* these figures and the framing of the figures came from a documentary I was watching about a week ago. I tried to back track and figure out what it was. No luck. If I do, I’ll come back with attribution.
Dull light this morning but no percussive hammering. I think it’s over.
Also over: the first (and most invasive) step in getting an implant for my front right tooth. The one with a history.
Grievance: a doctor who didn’t answer my email about anxiety meds until it was too late to do anything about it.
Humor: my brother disagreeing with her assessment that diazepam prescribed eleven years ago probably wouldn’t work. “Unless it’s turned to fungus,” he said, “it’s fine.”
It was fine. In fact it was so fine that I was relieved when K said he’d walk over with me. I felt that woozy.
Tonight I’m eating ice cream. I can be a bit of a baby.
Yesterday I wrote a scene where a character spins and spins and spins. Sufis were mentioned. Imagine my surprise as I noodled around with this week’s Paris Collage Collective visual prompt in bed later to see the Sufis emerge (from an old SoulCollage card). I remixed extensively to make them more visible (along the lower edge).
I didn’t seen them at first. With many of the dianaphoto app filters they disappeared. I love to be surprised like this.
A far cry from where I started.
The Christ-like figure is from a photo taken by Andrew J. Whitaker, a photographer for the Charleston paper The Post and Courier. He took it during the summer of George Floyd protests — George Floyd who recently would’ve turned 50.
Other surprises from last night.
I’ve lost half an inch — which means the next time I lose half an inch, I’ll be 4’11” and a half. I know it’s indicative of spine deterioration, aging, blah, blah, but I also find it funny. FOUR-ELEVEN and a HALF — REALLY? (I’m looking at you, Dottie!)
At my annual yesterday, my PCP managed to be efficient and personable at the same time. I got to air my concerns. She referenced reports from specialists and reviewed them for both of us. She even asked after the boys.
Are you lucky enough to have a doctor that gives you enough time?
In other news, this week’s Paris Collage Collective double image is dedicated to Tommy Tuberville who recently announced that white nationalists are Americans and not racists. He has since walked this back.
I agree with the commentator who said it was hard to tell if the man is more racist than stupid or more stupid than racist. And then there’s this:
The printer is working again, so there will be paper variations this week.
After two zoom calls and a dog walk, I had the day to myself, and also the house. I enjoyed going between the ironing board in the living room and the bins of cloth in the basement. Up and down the stairs. It felt like getting back to something I’d been missing and didn’t know how much.
The buttons on this one are coming off — too much like eyes. Whimsical is okay but not distracting.
Composed years ago, this little house quilt was languishing in a pile.
Cloth: plaid flannel — one of the boys’ pjs; wool challis from a scarf that belonged to my mother; luscious indigo strip dyed by me years ago. I can’t remember who wore the dark shirt behind the house, but I’m pretty sure that I bought the vintage hankie (roof) on eBay once upon a time.
Auditioning my barn on a stormy background. The foreground is stitched already, which is the only sewing I managed to accomplish in California.
I just inserted that thread crumb moon this morning. If I keep it, I’ll work some purple into the foreground.
Speaking of not getting much done, I am tired today and don’t even feel like walking the dog.
Yellow arrives out front. Such a cheerful color, yellow!
