Story Quilts Touring Exhibition Celebrates Heartfelt Closing

10 Community-Created Quilts Gifted to Cincinnati Host Sites

Representatives of Learning Through Art, Inc. and the Wave Pool Gallery present the quilt created by Cincinnatians at August’s “Night Market” to a representative of Findlay Market, where the quilt will be displayed going forward. The quilt welcomed Little Amal during her rest at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center when she walked into Cincinnati.

Learning Through Art, Inc. (LTA) and the Wave Pool Gallery in Camp Washington teamed up to present the touring exhibition of Story Quilts from January 13th until this weekend’s ceremonial closing on March 2nd, 2024. The exhibition marked the first time that all of the community-crafted quilts from the years-long Story Quilts project have been on view to the public. 

Story Quilts was a project LTA first began in 2021, as part of a regional and national “truth and reconciliation” program in partnership with ArtsWave and the Centre for Community Resilience at The George Washington University.

Since the project’s inception in 2021, LTA organized eleven Community Conversations, which included citizens and neighbors from Cincinnati and beyond who joined in facilitated discussions to share their personal and complicated truths about their experiences with systemic racism and social injustice—as well as proposed solutions which might help us reach reconciliation. During the conversations’ truth-telling, participants used various tools to create unique designs on quilt squares that were later joined into inspired community quilts, including a quilt that was created at the Findlay Market Night Market in July of 2023 (shown above), and later presented to Little Amal as she took her rest at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center during Cincinnati's Walk With Amal on September 22, 2023, presented in partnership with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.

All of the resulting quilts demonstrate the concerns of those included in these art-making community discourse driven gatherings.  For example, the “Joining Forces for Children” quilt made by educators and health care professionals reflect their care and understanding of the body; whereas the communal textile work crafted by those who attended the Lincoln Grant Scholar House’s Community Conversations, emphasize the organization’s mission towards academic achievement and tending to the health and post-secondary education of single-parent families. 

Story Quilts to Continue Their Impact

Ms. Kathy Wade, CEO and Co-Founder of Learning Through Art, Inc. presents the Story Quilt to Cincinnati Public Schools, Innovation Planning Strategy Team, one of the Community Conversation Host Sites, with the help of LTA’s Program Manager Rachael Parker and Wave Pool’s Director of Exhibitions & Artist Support Initiatives Maria Seda-Reeder

Each of the quilts that were on view is special and uniquely addresses the difficult questions posed in the midst of these public conversations: that societal injustices are complex and require community buy-in for real change to happen.  These conversations are just one step in that process of integration back into the community.  But witnessing and holding space for difficult truths is another way in which that healing can happen.  To that aim and as part of this exhibition, Wave Pool hosted an engaging Community Conversation on Thursday February 1st, facilitated by LTA, as a moving start to Black History Month.

During the Closing Ceremony on Saturday evening, all of the Community Conversation constituents and partners were invited to receive the completed quilts created at their respective hosting sites. Each quilt was gifted to the organization’s representative in attendance, to return to its place of origin in order to hold space for and continue the conversations of our truths and reconciliation.

We are grateful to be honoring these organizations whose involvement has been key to the Story Quilts project.

Hosting Site Partners:

• Booker T. Washington Community Center

• Lincoln Grant Scholar House

• Wyoming Center for the Arts

• Joining Forces For Children

• Cincinnati Public Schools Innovation Planning Strategy Team

• Harriet Beecher Stowe House

• Findlay Market Workshop for Little Amal

• Fitton Center For Creative Arts

• Xavier University; Institutional Diversity and Inclusion

• Wave Pool: A Contemporary Art Fulfillment Center

Thank you to our Sponsors & our Story Quilts Partners.

This work has been made possible through the support and collaboration of our sponsors and partners. We thank you all.

Sponsors:

• Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile Jr. Foundation

• P&G

• 7 Principles Foundation

• Center for Community Resilience; Milken Institute School of Public Health; The George Washington University

• ArtsWave

• CET/PBS

• Metro

• The Cincinnati Herald

Partners:

• Cincinnati Arts Association

• Revolution Dance Theatre

• Women of Color Quilters Network, Inc.

• Fitton Center For Creative Arts

• LAG Productions

• Cincinnati Museum Center

• Elementz

• Cincinnati Public Schools

• National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

• Harriet Beecher Stowe House

• Cincinnati Boychoir

• Wyoming Fine Arts Center

• Joining Forces For Children

• Xavier University

• Findlay Market

• Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra

• Lincoln Grant Scholar House

• Booker T. Washington Community Center

• Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library

• Wave Pool: A Contemporary Art Fulfillment Center

• The Well.

From all of us at Learning Through Art, Inc. to all of our facilitators, partners, sponsors, educators, and neighbors, thank you for being a part of the conversation.