MURFREESBORO
— An MTSU-coordinated labor of love, pieced together by a group of international
artists and friends to celebrate the arts, education and cultural exchanges, is
now being spotlighted in Washington, D.C.
The beautiful handcrafted quilt, comprising 81 specially designed
squares contributed by 38 countries and 36 states, combines talents from
Tunisia to Texas into a massive piece of fiber art recognizing the abilities
and friendships of artists around the world.
It's currently on display in the main gallery of the U.S. Department of
State’s Harry S. Truman Building in Washington, D.C., through late July. It
will be formally presented to Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith July 24 at the U.S.
Capitol and then will become a permanent part of the State Department's Arts in
Embassies traveling worldwide exhibit.
The quilt is the crown jewel of VSA’s "40 Days Around the
World" Digital Arts Festival, an online celebration of international arts
exchanges involving artists with disabilities in 60 countries and 37 states.
Organizers developed the digital "festival," which goes live
Tuesday, June 16, at http://40days.vsatn.org
with the first of its 40 projects and concludes July 26, to commemorate VSA's
40th anniversary as well as the 25th anniversary of the passage of the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
VSA Tennessee is a statewide nonprofit organization that provides
resources, tools and opportunities for arts programming for people with
disabilities. It's an affiliate of VSA, the international organization on arts
and disabilities founded by Smith in 1974 and formerly known as Very Special
Arts, which merged with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in
2011 to expand its services.
VSA Tennessee Executive Director Lori Kissinger, an instructor in MTSU's
Department of Organizational Communication, spearheaded the entire project with
the help of several of her students and volunteers.
They developed the website, worked with artists, coordinated special
events for participants and handled publicity for the international effort. One
exchange, for example, saw young artists with autism in East Tennessee and
Vietnam share photos, drawings and poetry about the mountain ranges that each group
calls home.
You can learn more about the "40 Days" project in a special
video at http://youtu.be/4WiHP6DXpGY.
Once the squares for the quilt began arriving, MTSU professor Lauren
Rudd of the Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Design gathered student
volunteers to help put the quilt together with the aid of hardworking local
artists.
“What
became immediately apparent was that these were not ordinary quilt squares,”
Kissinger recalled. “Some were woven on a loom, some were intricately
embroidered, some were batik, some were a silk screen; the list goes on. Each
quilt square was a unique piece of art.
“Then came
the stories. There is the story of the teenager who learned through working on
this quilt that college was an option for her future. There was the young girl
who demonstrated such immediate passion and aptitude for sewing that it is
believed she may have found her life’s vocation. There was the country whose
children got so immersed in expressing what makes their country unique that
they created an entire packet of squares. The (VSA) affiliate couldn’t select
just one, so they sent them all to us and said that we would have to make that
decision.
“It was
the stories that breathed life into the quilt. … They spoke of how the arts can
open doors in education, how the arts can lay out a path to careers and how the
arts can break down barriers in communication.”
Kissinger was part of a May 29 event when the quilt went on display at
the U.S. State Department headquarters. At that event, she learned that the U.S. Department
of Civil Rights is interested in creating a book about the quilt and its
stories to accompany it around the world.
"There are several popular metaphors for
our diverse, pluralistic American society, but the quilt may be the best of the
lot,” a State Department official said at the May event.
“This quilt illustrates America’s fundamental
belief that our strength comes from unity. Globally, this quilt reflects the strength of U.S.
diplomacy as we stitch together international relations to foster global peace
and security."
The MTSU wordmark on a Raider blue and white eight-point star is the
first quilt block. Its center block depicts a bright pink-and-purple plush
applique hand in the universal sign-language gesture for “I love you.”
“Two young girls suggested that the quilt should have one square that
did not represent any one state or country or organization ... [but] should
represent love because that is the universal language,” Kissinger explained.
“They believed that love was the driving force behind the entire project and
what had kept this project together.”
Kissinger's students regularly help with VSA events at MTSU as part of
her experiential learning classes, coordinating events like each autumn’s National
Christmas Tree decorating party and the "Golden Ratio Project," an
international arts education exchange performance.
For more
information about VSA Tennessee, visit http://www.vsatn.org
or contact Kissinger at userk7706@comcast.net
or 615-210-8819.
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