W.C.Q.N. Projects
An important component of the Network's activity is its use of quiltmaking in social and economic development projects. Educational projects and workshops foster exposure to the arts, creative development, and improved self-esteem. These programs present the benefits of quilting to audiences of all ages, income levels, ethnic background and learning abilities. Major Network community projects include:
The New York Founding Hospital:
Quiltmaking is taught to pregnant teens at the hospital. At the end of each eight-to-ten period, toys will be made by each participant. One toy will be given to the mother’s child at birth, and one will be given to an outpatient in a special ward for chronically or terminally ill children.
Toys for Kids: A Celebration of Giving:
The Network co-sponsored, along with Partners in Giving, a family workshop at the American Craft Museum, in which families made more than 200 stuffed animals for children staying at the Ronald McDonald House. Toys from this project were also donated to the Bronx Children’s Psychiatric Hospital and Cassidy's Place.
Friends For the Arts Mentoring Program:
The Network has been involved in this program since 1988. Children are mentored and taught quiltmaking by Network members. Sales of their quilts and hand painted silk scarves are used sponsor projects such as a summer art camps, museum trips, and academic scholarships.
Project: Tell Mama Now
Leader: Dr. Myrah Brown Green
Location: Brooklyn, New York
The Tell Mama Now project is a mentoring/ rites of passage program for girls, ages 7- 18 and who are exposed to visual arts and history with a focus on African art and artists of the African Diaspora. The girls and experience a range of art mediums taught by professionals in the field. Group discussions, college counseling and portfolio preparation, field trips to fine art institutions are provided.
Project: Sisters Educating, Advocating and Managing (S.E.A.M.) program
Project Leader: Dr. Myrah Brown Green
Location: Brooklyn, New York
S.E.A.M. offers mentoring, workshops and empowerment retreats for women over 21 years old. Many are parents of girls in the Tell Mama Now program.
Project: Visual Literacy
Project Leader: Marla Jackson
Location: National locations
The primary goal is to help students, many of whom are at-risk, and often diagnosed with learning disabilities, to find their voice through art. We believe that such students have underutilized abilities that have yet to be tapped. Art as a means of literacy intervention has the capacity to carry over into many other areas of their lives and lead to sustainable means of self-support.
Project: Quilt Instruction
Project Leader: Ed Johnetta Miller
Location: National locations
Students are taught how to make quilts, dye fabric and explore the process of dying resist. Students sell work made in classes.
Project: Voices on Cloth
Project Leader: Peggie Hartwell
Location: National locations
This is a children's program which promotes creative thinking and the concept of art as a visual language. The creation of story quilts, story banners, fabric murals, fabric art books, and fabric post cards provides a nurturing experience in which young people may develop creative awareness and awaken the artist within. Special considerations are given to students with disabilities, as artistic expression unites us all in a common medium of self expression and shared experiences. Grades include K – 12th.
Project: Dreams and Memories
Project Leader: Peggie Hartwell
Location: National locations
Dreams and Memories is a cultural diversity quilt program that gives immigrant students the opportunity to discover and share their unique stories through writing, telling stories and making story quilts. The primary goal of this project is for each student to create beautiful story quilt blocks on the theme/subject of their "memories" of their homelands and their "dreams" of their new country - America- while, at the same time, learning basic sewing and quilting skills. Blocks, when completed, are combined to form a single wall hanging and/or quilted banner.
Project: Global World Arts
Project Leader: Peggie Hartwell
Location: National locations
Global World is a program that introduces participants to multicultural art from around the world. Participants explore different traditions and cultures and, in learning of world art, are sometimes surprised to discover a "unity in diversity" - that many very similar traditions exist within their own communities. Participants explore these diversities of various cultural and ethnic groups and illustrate the connections/similarities between the other and their own. Quilted panels/blocks are completed in book form and/or as a wall hanging. 1st – 12th grade.