A tangle of emotions

Highs and lows of pandemic stitched together in community quilt

By Allison Marlow
Posted 6/19/20

Alexi Felty was inspired by the many people who returned to nature during the pandemic lockdown.

“… gardening, appreciating the simple joys of the outdoors, and returning to caring …

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A tangle of emotions

Highs and lows of pandemic stitched together in community quilt

Posted

Alexi Felty was inspired by the many people who returned to nature during the pandemic lockdown.

“… gardening, appreciating the simple joys of the outdoors, and returning to caring for others in our communities .. we’ve waited too long for this return,” she wrote.

Anita Park-Rosenbaum wanted to pay tribute to the volunteers who crafted masks for first responders and medical personnel.

And 9-year-old Vivian Marlow vented the frustration felt by more than a few after leaving school two months early and being sent home to wait out a danger that was invisible but lurking in everyday life.

Each of these emotions was stitched together in a community project hosted by the Eastern Shore Art Center. The Quarantine Quilt project invited community members to craft a quilt square that expressed their experiences and feelings during the COVID-19 shut down.

“We really wanted to show everybody’s experience whether it was positive or negative,” said Adrienne Clow, marketing director for the Eastern Shore Art Center.

 

What resulted were 37 artists crafting 48 squares out of a wide gamut of media, much of it found around their homes. Some quilt squares were crochet, others were painted. Some were embroidered and made with paper collage. Each represented a snippet of time and emotion.

 The artists ranged in age from five to 83.

“We weren’t sure how much of a reaction we would get but we had such great contribution,” Clow said. “We couldn’t be happier.”

A video of the entire quilt has been posted to the center’s Facebook page. You can see it in person since the center opened to guests this week, allowing 12 guests at a time to peruse the galleries. Visitors ages 10 and up are asked to wear masks.

The quilt will be hanging in the front foyer until July.