Art Quilts and Poetry about Japanese Americans in Internment Camps
Quilts by Cathy Erickson & Poetry by Margaret Chula
What started as two people, a poet and a quilter, creating a single poem and quilt for the Visual Verse project by the Contemporary QuiltArt Association, has changed and grown over the past six years. Many hours were logged doing research before the first word was written or the first piece of fabric was cut. The challenges of two people working together have been revealing and rewarding. —Cathy Erickson
Collaboration is like a mirror that shows each artist not just a mimicry of her work but reflects a subtlety that she was not able to see before. The words of the poem allow the quilt artist to look deeper into the fabric of her creation to see the layers that were not visible before. For the poet, words take on texture, color linear rhythm—a rhythm of lines and shapes rather than iambs. The sum of the piece becomes more than itself. -–Margaret Chula
In the 1940’s over 120,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned in internment camps. From the newborn baby to the aging grandfather, all their lives were changed dramatically. Now only photos, stories, and rock rubble remain of the time. The art quilts and poetry in this series attempt to capture the spirit of what remains over sixty years later.
Art Quilts and Poetry Event with Cathy Erickson and Margaret Chula. June 11, 2011; 1pm. Click here for details.
For more information about these artists, please visit their websites:
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