31 Quilts

The morning after I got home from the first October tour around Iowa, my mother called, very excited. "I had an idea," she said.

And what an idea. My mother, fabric artist Maureen Kampen, had been thinking about the photo portraits of the 31 women of the project. And she thought, of course, of how beautiful the portraits would look on fabric, as art. Thus began the "31 Quilts" project. Maureen has begun transforming the portraits, one at a time, into quilts that tell even more of each woman's story.

Check back on this page for progress as this long-term project moves forward.
The Asheville Quilt Show, Aug 7-9, Asheville, North Carolina

Note from Maureen:

The main purpose behind my decision to make quilts celebrating the 31 survivors in the "31" project was to help get the story out there. When I entered the first quilt (Veronica the Painter, Veronica the Survivor) in our Asheville Quilt Show, I reminded myself of why I was entering it - and it wasn't because I coveted a prize!

The Asheville Quilt Show is a big show and quilts come in from all over the US and a couple from Europe. About 265 quilts in all. So I reminded myself of why I was making these quilts and it wasn't to get shiny, satin ribbons, or even prize money, and then surprised myself when I was very disappointed that the quilt did not receive a prize. (I sulked a little, and thought bad thoughts about the judges..)

But before I left the show, I had people hunting me down to tell me what a wonderful quilt it is! They used words like "moving"..."incredible"..."unforgettable." One woman said, "I really admire that person (Ronnie)! She must be a wonderful woman." One of my friends said she saw two women with tears in their eyes as they were walking away from the quilt, and then they stopped and hugged each other.

I enjoyed hanging in the background and watching people scrutinize the quilt. I heard one woman say to her friend, "Listen to this...the police said, HUH, they're his kids too." They continued to read the quilt to each other and then walked away shaking their heads. I got over my sulk!

I've also received a couple of emails from people I don't know and they were asking about the quilt and the project. Luckily, I can refer them to the website and know that they will receive exposure to all the good things that are going on with the "31" project.

Today, when I went to lunch with docents and staff from our local Art Museum, one of the women said she'd taken some pictures of my quilt at the show, and would it be okay if she put one in the museum's Newsletter? So there we go! The quilts will do what I had hoped.

Maureen

Detail
Here's a detail from the quilt. You can see this on the left border.

Click on the image and you can see it larger.

The photo is Ronnie as a child, and the words are Ronnie's, from her story.

Ronnie Deevers
Here's the first quilt done by Maureen.