By Guest Columnist MICHELLE HISKEY, an Atlanta-based journalist and writing coach.
Vulnerable children of color are benefiting through a patchwork of quilters from all over the world visiting Atlanta next week. They arrive as more textile artists are using their creative skills for social activism, and telling stories of marginalized people and their pain.
QuiltCon, the largest modern quilt show of its kind, will be held February 23-26, 2023, at the Atlanta Convention Center at AmericasMart. Thousands of attendees will view more than 600 quilts, shop the curated vendor hall, and participate in learning more about quilting.
Michelle Hiskey is a longtime Atlanta-based journalist and writing coach. She can be reached at [email protected].
Because this craft has always celebrated community, quilters across the country made 38 quilts to benefit people in need in the host city. These Community Outreach quilts are for sale to raise funds for the Carrie-Steele Pitts Home, which for more than a century has nurtured abused, abandoned and neglected children who are unable to stay with their parents, and the children’s sickle cell disease program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, which treats 2,000 children as the largest such program in the country.
Connections to these children’s needs were made through the local Brown Sugar Stitchers Quilt Guild, a diverse guild with more than 100 members from metro Atlanta and 13 other states. I joined them last year as a way to build friendships with women of color and support their art. I agree with death penalty activist Bryan Stevenson that one way forward to racial justice is to genuinely see, hear and understand circumstances facing people. We need to “get proximate” with each other, and working on quilts is a great way to do that.
Established in 2000, Brown Sugar Stitchers have been donating their creations to these two charities as well as families victimized by violence. They will exhibit their…
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