Honest Voting

While I was transferring episodes of Simply Quilts off the DVR the other day, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a tie-in to voting and elections.

A quilter named Lauren Austen, who was director of the University of Syracuse Community Folk Art Gallery at the time this episode of Simply Quilts was filmed, makes quilts that tell stories — she also collaborates with a storyteller/oral historian named Vanessa Johnson. (She currently is Community Artist in Residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.)

In this episode of Simply Quilts, Austen explained the story behind her quilt “Lucy Goes to Vote.”

Austen says, “I made it to commemorate when South Africa changed and black people got the right to vote there. And it made me remember stories of my family talking about in the South, when black people got the right to vote.”

She describes the quilt: “Lucy is walking to vote in the hot sun, and she’s taking her baby with her, because it is important that he see his mama and her people making history.” The text on a strip of cloth goes further: “Walking to the poll place, she could hear the anthem being sung softly by those already waiting in the hot sun. They hurried to catch up. It was a good day.”

You can see the quilt on Austen’s web page in the Art Quilts section.

Just a reminder that access to free elections is a personal, emotional experience as well as an abstract civil right.

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