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Articles
A Stitch in Time A tribute to Canadians' roots here and all over the world, the Quilt of Belonging binds diverse cultures and histories into a heartwarming whole. You can tell just by driving through Williamstown, Ont. - past the general store and the stone church first built by United Empire Loyalists - that the community's French and British roots run deep. What you would never guess is that this tiny community (about an hour southwest of Montreal) is the headquarters of an ambitious initiative that will involve people from every nation on the planet. Entitled Invitation, the Quilt of Belonging, the project is the brainchild of local artist Esther Bryan. When it is done, the nine-foot-high, 135-foot-long quilt will contain 270 blocks, with one handmade block representing each immigrant group, First Nations peoples and Inuit in Canada. In 1998 Esther, born in France to an American mother and a Slovakian father - and an immigrant to Canada herself - had an idea, a big idea. She wanted to create a collaborative, community-based textile project that would celebrate the Canadian mosaic. To her delight, after weeks spent scouring immigration records, she found that there is someone from every single country in the world in Canada. What began as Esther's exploration of her own roots is now a project in which a planetful of people have something personal at stake. Canadians may be descendants of Irish farmers driven here by famine, or recent refugees fleeing from war-torn Kosovo, but, except for First Nations and Inuit Canadians, all came here to start anew. "And that is why the theme of the project is belonging, no matter who you are or where you came from," says Esther. Patchwork is the perfect metaphor for the Canadian mosaic, she decided, and fabric the perfect medium. Beginning with a few needlewomen, Esther soon rallied a countrywide army of volunteers equipped with telephones, encyclopedias, rotary cutters, needles and thread. The local council donated the old township hall for studio space, the Canada Council for the Arts threw in a small portion of the necessary funding, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization offered engineering advice. Esther sent invitations for potential quilt-block makers and donors to embassies, cultural organizations, native bands and seniors' centres via phone, e-mail, post and even CB radio. Each of 270 groups in Canada (including 74 First Nations and Inuit groups) was asked to produce an 11-inch square quilt block that features a design and materials that represent its heritage. Usually, volunteers from the groups themselves make the blocks. "But sometimes they don't have the skill or they have lost it, so they give us the material and the direction; then our resident volunteer textile artists take it from there," says Esther. The response has been amazing. "People are just thrilled to participate," says Esther. Right now, someone somewhere in Canada could be carefully folding a piece of precious fabric into an envelope and giving it a quick peck goodbye before sending it off to the Williamstown post office. "You really are on pins and needles when you open up a package," says Esther. The volunteers never know what they'll find. "We received an entire hide of smoked caribou in the mail from Yellowknife, "says one project volunteer. Ming Su, an immigrant living in Toronto, sent one of her treasures from Taiwan: an antique silk money bib once worn by her grandmother. "She doesn't have children and thought this would be a good place for it," says Esther. Another piece of fabric came from one of only two Canadians from São Tomé e Principe, an island off the African coast. The old township hall is now a fabric fantasyland, with material scattered on tabletops, spilling out of cupboards and folded over chair backs. Half of the blocks have already been completed. They include fabric that has been appliquéd, beaded, cross-stitched, embroidered and hand-woven; abalone shells; amber from Lithuania; bobbin lace; a brooch from Poland; cedar bark; deerskin; Déné thread made from sinew and saliva; English wool; Kente cloth from Ghana; moose hide; porcupine quills; rabbit fur; satin; sealskin; silk; 200-year-old German linen; and worry dolls from Guatemala. The enthusiastic band from Baker Lake, Nunavut, mailed in two blocks, then agreed to combine them into one. Embroidery depicting an Inuit game called One-Foot-High Kick is combined with caribou-bone carvings of an ulu (a traditional knife) and a polar bear. The passionate volunteers come from all over eastern Ontario and western Quebec. They get together to swap stories and sew. Helja Thomson, of Finnish background, is a two-year volunteer who first wandered into the former municipal building by mistake, intending to pay her taxes. "We don't want Esther to realize just how much we are enjoying ourselves here or she'll start charging admission!" she says. For everyone, the project has led to unexpected connections. Esther and the volunteers have travelled the country to round up blocks and meet quilt-block makers. In Toronto, she kneaded dough with a Bosnian woman who "didn't feel Canadian until she had made a pie." Veiled Afghan-Canadian women in Toronto invited her for a meal in their lavishly carpeted home, where they all ate on the floor from one common dish. Seniors from the Yet Keen Seniors' Day Centre in Ottawa made the trek to Williamstown, and a crowd of Italian-Canadians, also from Ottawa, gathered to show off handmade linens that were part of their dowries and never used in Canada once they discovered Simpsons-Sears and permanent press. Even a delegation from Nunavik came down for the official launch of the project in Ottawa in 2000. "It's nice to be able to connect with other native artists and their work," says volunteer Olga Fortin. A Cree from northern Manitoba who now lives near Williamstown, she says that making that connection can sometimes be difficult: "With some First Nations, we get the message 'Gone fishing for three months' as they move the whole family out to the trapline or fish camp." Sharing stories is a big part of Invitation. "The project inspires people here to start pulling out their family heirlooms and share stories," says Esther. As part of the project, an interpretive text with a section on each block will accompany the quilt. While Esther is the creative head, Daphne Howells, with more than 30 years of library service, is the master researcher. "They came to me and asked me to weave for the Welsh block," says Daphne, "and then I heard about their need for research. Well, it's what I do!" Her office walls are covered in maps, charts and lists with country names crossed out and renamed. "The borders are constantly changing," she says. "My geography was good when I first came here, but now…" The research and discussions also help define some of the designs. It's a chance to break down stereotypes," says Daphne. "The Netherlands group discussed it: no wooden shoes, no tulips. What really mattered to them was their home." But sometimes all that careful research gets thrown out the window. Daphne describes how she received the block from the Abenaki native band of Wolinak, Que. The design that Esther and rock singer Sylvie Bernard had tirelessly worked out had been abandoned. "So," says Daphne, "Esther phoned Sylvie and asked, 'What's up?' 'I had a dream,' Sylvie told Esther." The dream became the design. Every story the women tell starts out as an exploration of the differences between groups and between blocks but ends with how much they all share. A block made by two sisters from El Salvador who were both imprisoned and tortured there is a beautiful, brightly coloured embroidery with a huge red sun, blooming flowers and even a dove. A volunteer recounts how, during a design session, a woman from Africa lifted her skirt to reveal torture scars that ran all the way up her leg. Another volunteer lost a son in the World Trade Center disaster. Now, more than ever, the making of the quilt is an opportunity to break down barriers and focus on shared experiences. The movement from separateness to togetherness is a challenge that will continue as the individual parts are assembled into the whole quilt. Esther points to a provisional plan taped to the wall. "The first row on the quilt will be made up entirely of First Nations and Inuit blocks. They were here first, so they get the foundation row," says Esther. (After researching in Newfoundland, volunteers will make the block in memory of the extinct Beothuk.) Above the Haida nation sits Belarus, next to China. The blocks will be surrounded by black sashing and arranged according to their coloured borders, not by geography or politics. The intense border colours run the full spectrum, with red at both ends of the quilt and again in the middle, "abstractly recreating the design of the Canadian flag," explains Esther. "At what distance are the blocks too close together and no longer distinct, and at what distance are they too separate, like floating islands?" Esther asked herself when drawing up the plan. "We all stared at it for a long time trying to find that equilibrium, that balance. That black space was critical. Finally we decided that 3¼ inches would do it." Winding along the sashing between the blocks, multicoloured cording will link and frame the blocks. The quilt will be made in 12 panels and backed with a specially engineered fabric designed to carry the weight. Viewers will be able to come up close to look at each block, face to face, then step back to see the whole quilt, which is, of course, the Canadian block. The massive mosaic should hit the road in 2004 as a travelling show of stitches and stories.
"We've had so many invites from all across Canada," says Esther. But people are already making the trek to Williamstown to have a look at the work in progress. "They just can't wait to find their block - to see their part of the world recognized."
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