“Not Going Back” Quilt

The linens and denim I’ll use for my new quiltI’ve been thinking about the quilt ever since I had the dream over a month ago.

In my dream I was in a big house standing in front of a window curtained with drapes.  The drapes were white with a pale green trim.  The panels were layered some pulled back, others hanging straight.  Yellow light filtered through them and as I watched a Black woman emerged from the drapes and began to dance.  She was wearing a Victorian dress the color of the drapes, glowing with yellow sunlight.

She did a beautiful dance and when she was done she faded ,like a ghost, back into the window.

When I woke up I was upset that the woman went back into the drapes. As if she was invisible again.   I wanted to have a dream where the woman came out of the drapes and stayed out.

My dream made me think of all the linens I have with embroidered images of women in Victorian dresses and bonnets hiding their faces.  Some are on table runners others crocheted on the edges of hankies.

Now, because of my dream instead of thinking of the women on the embroideries as being white I imagined there being black and brown women under those long dresses and bonnets.

The morning after my dream I went through my linens and pulled out all the ones with the Victorian women on them. Along with one of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, a woman dressed in pants, and some abstract embroideries that reminded me of the symbols of ancient goddesses.

I left the linens in a pile in my studio then sometime after that, I watched one of Kamala Harris’s campaign speeches.   The words Not Going Back from her speech touched me not only politically, but in a very personal way.

Yesterday my friend Anne gave me six linen napkins with bulls heads on them.   I immediately thought of how bulls heads were one of the symbols of the goddess because they resemble the uterus and fallopian tubes.

They were perfect for my quilt.

Then last night, after watching Kamala Harris’ speech at the Democratic Convention, I knew it was time to make my quilt.

I know some things about it for sure.  I will be using denim with the linens.  And I will be stitching the words:  Not going back, Free, Freedom and Show your Soul onto the denim and linens.

The rest will come as I work.