Natalie and Naomi visited the Mitchell-Linden branch to see if it would be a good place to host the project. Natalie picked up Naomi driving a library car, and on our way we imagined what it would be like for people to access this branch using public transportation since it was a little far from the 7 Main Street stop. We met with the branch manager, Farzaneh Momeni, who gave us a warm welcome and showed us the activity room. After having a conversation, we decided that since their program audience is mostly youth and seniors, this branch was not the ideal location though we would keep it in mind for future projects. We decided then to work with the Flushing branch, which had also offered us a slot for Tuesday evenings through the summer.

After the site visit, Naomi stayed in the area to join the Community Board 7 monthly meeting. We had been in touch with Susie Tanenbaum, the Director of Immigrant & Intercultural Affairs with the Queens Borough President’s office, about local connections for sewing instructors. She had recommended we give a short presentation at the CB meeting. Naomi introduced the project and made a recruitment call during the public hearing time, and afterwards gave information to a World Journal reporter.

Meeting at Central Library with Natalie, Naomi and Lori to discuss logistics, publicity, funding, etc.

Naomi met with Stephen Au in the gym of P.S. 20 prior to a Good Friday church service. We discussed the project concept and started brainstorming about stories and techniques he could share during the workshops. We talked about how immigration affects not just the people who move but their whole families and the next generation also.

Naomi and Lori met with quilting instructor Thadine Wormly at Naomi’s studio at Queens College. They went over the project concept and brainstormed about stories and techniques Thadine could share during the workshops. Thadine and Naomi both shared examples of their textile work. Prior to this meeting Naomi attended a Quilt-n-Queens guild meeting at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, where Thadine is a longtime member and was leading the evening’s activities.

Natalie, Lori and Naomi met with Gina Fazio, who showed us the third floor conference room where we would be doing our workshops. She gave us some more information about the library’s clientele, what we may expect from the people who come, and other logistics.

Naomi met Stephen and his wife Alice at their home in Forest Hills. We talked over coffee and a simple breakfast. Stephen had been hard at work coming up with ideas for the workshop activity and was excited to share them. We narrowed down a few options and talked about the things that we would need to prepare before June.

Naomi met with Judy in the gym of P.S. 20 following a church service to discuss the content of her workshop. Judy shared some compelling memories of accompanying her mother to her work in garment factories and sweatshops. We discussed a general idea that she had for an activity and identified other community members she would work with to plan out the details.

At our second session with instructor Stephen Au, most of the first week’s participants returned to continue working on their denim blocks. Stephen gave a condensed version of his introduction for the newcomers, and spent most of the session helping people with their design choices and sharing stories.

During the last half hour of the session, Naomi invited participants to show their work and share the meaning behind their designs, and four quilters did so. We were pleasantly surprised to see so many younger men participating in the workshop!

During our second session with Thadine Wormly, our 13 attendees continued working on the Log Cabin blocks. The more experienced quilters — many of whom had been part of Thadine’s other sewing groups — made multiple blocks once they got the hang of the pattern!

Thadine also treated the group to stories about special quilt initiatives in which she had participated, such as a cancer quilt project with Pomonok Library and Queens Hospital and By the Work of Her Hands, a collaboration between quilters in New York and Morocco.

This was our first session with instructor Judy Chang, who taught the Panamanian mola style of reverse applique quilting.

Panamanian mola style of reverse applique quilting. Judy shared the multigenerational story of her family’s migration from China to Panama and Panama to New York, and showed several examples of the mola technique.

For our second “open mic” session, we invited participants to share their families’ migration stories and how they related to the quilt blocks they had made. Attendees responded enthusiastically, sharing some very personal stories. We ran overtime in this session!

For our second session of quilting around the frame, we were delighted to have a young family join us — the children were enthusiastic to help and disappointed when they had to leave!

Naomi and Natalie brought the quilt to Flushing Library first thing Monday morning to hang it in the display space outside the lower-level auditorium. Five pairs of headphones were connected to the quilt to let patrons listen to the clips; signage indicated where the audio buttons were located and identified the speakers in the clips. There was some concern among the library staff that the headphones might be stolen, so RF barcodes were attached. As of 12 noon, the exhibit was open to the public!

We were honored to be invited to display the Story Quilt and hold a panel discussion about it at the American Folk Art Museum’s Self-Taught Genius Gallery in Long Island City. During the final weeks of workshops, we began assembling our panel, generating questions for the discussion, and promoting the event via social media.

A few days before the exhibit, Natalie, Naomi, our panel moderator and one of the panelists visited the space. This helped immensely to get a sense of how the quilt could be arranged for attendees to see it up close and listen to the audio clips. We also put together a slideshow of images from throughout the summer to display during the event.

Natalie, Lori and Naomi visited the Lewis H. Latimer House Museum in Flushing to meet with executive director Ran Yan and a member of the educational staff to discuss possible programming involving the Story Quilt. This collaboration was suggested by Jacqueline Colson, a participant in the quilting project who also volunteers at the museum; she attended the meeting as well. The museum hosts many STEM-themed programs for local schools, so a tie-in with the quilt’s LilyPad component seems promising. We discussed demonstrating the quilt in the museum’s Tinker Lab, or developing a new quilt workshop series aimed at the sight-impaired, possibly in the spring pending grant funding. We agreed to keep in touch about these opportunities.

Natalie and Naomi met with Yang Zeng, director of the Flushing Library, about plans to have the Story Quilt installed as a permanent exhibit at the library. This represents a full circle for the quilt, as it will be displayed in the third-floor conference room where it was created in our workshops! The timing of the installation has not yet been decided, as we plan to show the quilt in several more venues in the coming months, and the library intends to repaint the room soon as well. When the quilt is installed, we will make printed transcripts of the audio clips — in English and Chinese — available for patrons. We also agreed to explore options for making the playback technology more robust for ongoing use.

This evening marked the opening of the gallery’s exhibit, “Conversations with Harriet and Frederick: Stories Told, Journeys Unfold,” in which our quilt is included. A standing-room-only reception featured an artists’ panel discussion, with Naomi representing our project. We were happy to see so many visitors engaging with the quilt and listening to the audio clips; gallery staff members have graciously agreed to monitor and recharge the batteries while the quilt is displayed. Among the guests were one of our quilting instructors and three other workshop participants.

We gathered at the Walls-Ortiz Gallery one last time for a closing celebration of the joint exhibit, which explored the legacies of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass through the perspectives of several contemporary artists. Attendees discussed their common threads and dreams for the city and learned more about the artwork from the artists who were present.

In November 2019, the Community Story Quilt returned to its place of creation in Flushing Library. The quilt will be on permanent display in the third-floor conference room, where our quilting and recording sessions took place in summer 2018. Although the LilyPads will not be operational in this setting, three binders containing transcriptions of the audio clips (in English, Spanish and Chinese) are provided on a stand next to the quilt; the clips also continue to be available for listening on YouTube.