SJSA Workshop

A few weeks ago, the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles hosted a week-long workshop for the Social Justice Sewing Academy. I was lucky enough to be a volunteer one of the days. So far I've only participated by being an embroidery volunteer for SJSA, so I was excited to get to see up close and in person how When I arrived the young women (all but one going into senior year in high school) had designed and started on their quilts.

They were all covering topics that were important to them, and every single quilt design was well thought out. They talked very passionately and knowledgeably about their subjects which was not only impressive but quite moving. On average, I feel like their generation is paying a lot more attention to social justice issues and that it's making we in the older generations have to play catch up and learn. In my opinion...that's a good thing.

The quilts were about:
The pink tax and social media
The effects of school funding inequality
The history of the Edmund Pettus Bridge & Bloody Sunday
The performative aspects of gender and sexuality
The current debate about immigration and the border

The students get a lot out of participating in these workshops, beyond just a new item for their college applications and I was really grateful to get to work with them. Most of them hadn't worked with fabric before, and I got to teach them about the wonders of steam-a-seam.

 One of the adults running the workshop was working on her own quilt which was about slave ships and the US.

I can't wait to see this one and all the others stitched up, quilted and displayed.

This was the view as you come down the back hallway to the workroom. Doesn't that looks like a human figure, or maybe a robot? It's just a random assortment of stuff, a lamp is the head, the body is a roll of black plastic, etc. It really made me stop in my tracks.