Project Research
An archive of the research, influences, and ideas for our Story Quilt project with unhoused communities and the organizations that support them.

Names Project / The AIDS Quilt

Social Justice Sewing Academy

The Social Justice Sewing Academy works with youth to create quilts that demand social change and create opportunities for personal transformation. They have offered workshops at schools, prisons, and community centers across the country.

︎ SJSA website

Amish Quilts

Amish quilts were originally made from remnants of fabric used to make clothing, keep out drafts, and as blankets in the home.

︎ Amish Quilts

Rosie Lee Tompkins

Rosie Lee Tompkins was a Bay Area quilter known for her brightly colored improvisational quilts. With help from collector Eli Leon, Tompkins brought traditional quilting into a contemporary art context both in form and production.

︎ Read our thoughts on Tompkins’ work
︎ Tompkins obituary, NY Times

Kawartha Truth and Reconciliation Project

KTARP is a group of first peoples and settlers based in Canada, who meet monthly to share stories and histories, learn from each other, and make quilts. While quilting they talk about the brutal history of Canada’s colonial project, racism, and inequality. Each quilt panel illustrates an individual and varied perspective on the theme of the legacy of the residential schools in Canada.

︎ Go to website

Names Project /
AIDS Memorial Quilt

The largest piece of folk art in the world.

︎ Names Project / AIDS Memorial Quilt information and history
︎ The Quilt digitzewd and interactive via National Aids Memorial website

Faith Ringgold

Iconic multimedia artist Faith Ringgold has said that she switched from painting as a medium to fabric to get away from the association of painting with Western/European traditions. Similarly, the use of quilt allowed her advocation of the feminist movement as she could simply roll up her quilts to take to the gallery, therefore negating the need of any assistance from her husband.

︎ Artist website

Ana Torma

We love Canadian-Hungarian textile artist Anna Torma’s work because it expands the parameters of what a story quilt could be.

︎ Artist website

Project Research An archive of the research, influences, and ideas for our Story Quilt project with unhoused communities and the organizations that support them.