Sustainability and Activism in Art, by Sue Sherman

I recently returned from a whirlwind few days in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for this year’s Quilt Canada, the main annual event of the Canadian Quilters Association/Association Canadienne de la Courtepointe (CQA/ACC).  During this time I was also blessed to finally catch up with Luana Rubin, a force of nature within the quilting world.  More about that later.

CQA/ACC is the first quilting organization that I know of to assign an Award of Excellence for Sustainability.  This was not just a ribbon and a smile, but a full-on $1000 cross-category award equal to the Awards of Excellence for piecing, appliqué, innovation, hand stitching, and the two machine stitching awards. CQA worked with well-known Canadian Quilter Bridget O’Flaherty, aka The Sustainable Quilter  to develop criteria.  The award was either for the use of recycled/low-impact construction methods or materials, or for artistic content with an environmental or social message.  Show entrants in all categories were asked to check upon registration whether their quilt should be considered for this new award.

When I signed up to write this blog post earlier in the year I was always planning to make it about the new CQA/ACC Sustainability Award, so how wonderful is it to say that one of my quilts won it this year!  

The quilt is called “Sanctuary?” and it’s an absurd look at a future where Antarctica has warmed up to the point we have to create an artificially cooled environment in order for penguins to build their rookery.  The scene shows a geodesic dome covering the penguin nests, with a coal-fired furnace next to it spewing black smoke into the atmosphere to power an air conditioning system. The effect is quite dark but, I hope, amusing at the same time.  And what’s not to like about a quilt that's six feet wide with over 100 penguins on it?

We should also recognize that this year’s Sustainability Award of Excellence was sponsored by the Etobicoke Quilters’ Guild (Etobicoke is a part of Toronto).  This is a big commitment for a quilt guild and says a lot about their commitment to using quilting as a voice for change.  Bravo!

The judges at this year’s Quilt Canada may have made a further statement about the place of activism in quilt art by awarding Best in Show to another one of my recent activist pieces, “Life in the Anthropocene”, which is described in the April 6 blog post ArtCloth Network: Life in the Anthropocene.

Back to Luana Rubin, she has been a great supporter of quilting and quilters for many years through her company eQuilter.com, an incredible source of quilting fabric and other necessities that has committed to giving 2% of every sale to charity.  As one of the owners of eQuilter, Luana has sponsored many quilting and art quilt events over the years, and she has spoken extensively to the art quilting community around the world about including an activist element in our art. 

All of this encouragement of art activism is having an impact.  I used to feel the need to apologize for including an opinion in my artwork, but not so much anymore.  And other art quilters have also told me they are feeling less timid about expressing their views in art, and that viewers are responding positively.  As events unfold in what climate scientists have identified as the last decade where it will be truly possible to save the world from the worst effects of climate change, my plan for the near future will be to slowly increase the volume of my artistic voice.

You can see more of my work at sueshermanquilts.com.