After The Party

The journal of the making of the quilt!

Thursday, January 25, 2007

It was VERY exciting!

Well done Helen! There was quite a flurry of media attention after the announcement and Helen gave interviews with great strength, coolness and aplomb. I"m very grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the making of this quilt and to have Helen as a friend.

This photo, taken at the opening before the results had been announced, was published in our local newspaper, Janice on the left, Helen on the right:

There were 20 quilts entered in the challenge and I think ours won an award because it had the most immediate impact. Some of the others had strong design, some had strong stories and some had great emotional impact once you had time and strength to study them. But I think the aim of such a quilt must be to immediately engage a disinterested viewer because not many people *want* to think about family violence. Most of the other entries needed some time to study them to 'get the message'. I also think our quilt was much stronger from being drawn from personal experience. Thanks Helen, for your courage in telling your story.

The Best Postscript

Janice and I are thrilled that this quilt was winner of one of the two inaugural Human Rights Commission Challenge awards. All our hard work has been worthwhile. The waiting game got to high tension point last Friday. We had been invited to a special afternoon opening of this section of the Symposium Exhibition. I (naively as it turned out) thought they would announce the winners at the opening. No, we had to wait until the evening opening ceremony of the whole exhibition. It was announced towards the end. By that time I could hardly sit still!

I am deeply grateful to Janice for working with me on this project. I learned heaps and thoroughly enjoyed the collaborative experience. The quilt is much better than I would have produced on my own. Once again, thank you Janice.