The Dialogue Meeting

The first part of creating the Middle East Dialogue Quilt was held on February 11, 2007, in the Braun Room of Harvard Divinity School's Andover Hall. A great group of people showed up to talk about the Israel-Palestine conflict, to brainstorm ideas for the quilt, and to think together about what messages we could send to the Friends Meeting House in Ramallah.

It went beautifully! After introductions, we began by making fabric self-portraits as a way of getting used to working with the fabrics and of introducing ourselves in a novel fashion. We split into five discussion groups and began addressing how the Israel-Palestine conflict had affected us, how we reacted to the events happening there, and what kind of images and messages we would want to put into this quilt. The list included:

Transformation
Symbols from the three Abrahamic religions
The Light Within/Inner Light of the Quaker tradition
Clothing remnants built into a bodily reminder of the violence and loss
A shoe; either as a remembrance of someone lost or as a sign of walking on a path
Fragments of both cultures making a whole
Weaving peace from war
A pebble falling into a pond, casting ripples outward
Images of someday, ourselves or our grandchildren going to Ramallah
A chain of inspiration; a chain of quilts around the world
"Quilters Without Borders"
Two cities, Boston and Ramallah; Tel Aviv and Ramallah
A fist
An open hand
Tipping point
Strength in communities; birds feeding their young
Israelis and Palestinians living side by side
Children playing together and embracing
Hands and arms reaching out to each other and to the viewer
Broken hearts
Tears--or blood drops--flowing into freely running water, which nourishes green growth
Trees growing in the desert
Connections
Open roads
A new generation
Fire of hope and water of tears
Voice, speaking, seeing

With those images in our minds, we went to work on the fabric. Five mandalas were created together, weaving these ideas into images of brilliance and sadness.

Now it's my task as the lead quilter to synthesize these designs, to draw together the ideas in these mandalas into a single quilt for Ramallah. Not an easy task--especially when the mandalas themselves are each so full of meaning and beauty!

The Creative Process in Action!

Mandalas from the Dialogue Meeting

This mandala worked with the broken (but mending) hearts theme, as well as the flowing water and growing plants. The doors on the corners are visions into the blue skies of the future.
This group wanted to show peaceful living side-by-side, so the outer part of the mandala features an Israeli girl and a Palestinian girl together in a neighborhood with homes, trees, and water. The inner circle has mosques, churches, and symbols for synagogues, and the outer corners have the books of the Abrahamic faith traditions.
Here's a detail of this mandala--the butterflies aren't as visible on a large scale!
This one I worked on! We have hearts mending as they come to the center, the Inner Light flowing out, and small drops that could be tears or leaves showing transformation. There's also large figures leading to smaller ones--ourselves or our children in the future--and bright pink dancing figures of sheer joy.
Traveling with this mandala meant the beautiful flame in the center was somewhat crumpled by the time I got it home. But the glowing, mended hearts and the fire and water were untouched.
Here the transformation took place from an inner light to blue streams, and hearts that were hopeful but still wept blood. This is probably the boldest and most dynamic of the lot--and its makers were eager to see it completed!

Fabric Self-Portraits from the Dialogue Meeting

Boston Globe coverage of the Dialogue

Rich Barlow of the Boston Globe wrote a beautiful article about our meeting on February 11th!

The Original Proposal

“During the 2006 conflict in Lebanon, I and my friends reacted to the destruction and loss of life with sorrow, frustration, anger, and despair. There didn’t seem to be anything we could do—there barely seemed to be any way to even talk about the conflict. Keeping silent made us feel even more powerless. I looked for a way to bring people together to talk openly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was inspired by the recent Faith Quilts Project and its ability to form communities around collaborative quilting. The Dialogue Forum and the Public Conversations Project supported the idea, and the result was the Middle East Dialogue Quilt.”

--Lead Quilter Emily Ronald

Mission:

To use the art form of collaborative quilting to design and build a quilt around the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Initial design of the quilt will involve a dialogue between members of many communities, and construction will be shared among all these groups. This use of hands-on work will inspire conversation on many levels, providing a means of discussing the conflict while focusing on a group project. The quilt, which will be donated to the Friends Meeting House in Ramallah, is intended to be both a visual expression of hope and a message from people of many diverse communities.

The development of the quilt is a three-part process of design, basic construction, and group collaboration.

The design stage happens in a dialogue meeting, which will involve both an introduction to the idea of collaborative quilting and a discussion of important matters in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Participants are invited to come from a variety of religious, social, and activist communities. Over the course of the dialogue, participants will suggest design elements for the quilt, and will brainstorm more communities that would be interested in participating in the quilt’s construction.

Basic construction of the quilt is the responsibility of the Lead Quilter, who will integrate the suggested design elements into a single design which allows for community participation in its final construction, and prepare the quilt itself for community stitching.

During the group collaboration, the Lead Quilter will bring the quilt to interested communities. In this series of meetings, participants will have the opportunity to cut, glue, stitch, and otherwise complete the design of the quilt. At this stage, anyone can participate regardless of sewing experience. Work on the quilt will be accompanied by discussion of what the design means: a message of hope, peace, justice, understanding, etc., as determined in the initial design stage. Communities will have a chance to discuss what their own stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict means, and to join in a project shared by people with diverse backgrounds and opinions.

The final result will be both concrete and intangible: a finished work of art, a series of collaborations and discussions, and an online record of the full process. The completed quilt will be displayed before being sent to Ramallah.