A-B Tech students and faculty gathered in May to celebrate the grand finale of Voices & Visions, a year-long intergenerational oral history project that culminated in art students and Carolina Village retirement community residents collaborating on a quilt inspired by the seniors’ colorful life stories. Nearly 20 Carolina Village residents participated in Voices & Visions during the academic year, sharing their stories with 60 communication, fine arts, and videography students. The quilt was the final phase of the project, with art students’ designs converted into a quilt by six talented Carolina Village residents.
Designing quilt squares had been part of A-B Tech art instructor Ani Volkan’s 2D Design class since 2022. When Communication & Fine Arts Chair Handy first approached her last fall, hoping to collaborate on the new oral history project, Volkan jumped on board, happy to have a tangible way to bring the assignment to life. Coincidentally, Carolina Village also had a group of residents who met regularly to quilt together, so a quilt seemed the perfect way to tie the project together.
In the past, Volkan’s students drew inspiration from contemporary fiber artists for their projects. For the first time this year, they were inspired by real people and their stories. Volkan said the assignment really seemed to click for the first time. “I feel like it also made them more invested in the project,” she said. “(It was) about people now as opposed to just words. They had a lot of fun getting to meet the residents and hearing their stories.”
Last fall, Volkan’s students interviewed a group of Carolina Village residents to glean inspiration for their squares’ colors and patterns. Each interview was then condensed to several adjectives that guided designs meant to represent the seniors’ lives.
For example, student Teresa Rodriguez-Acosta interviewed Diane North, a former museum curator, whom she described as “lively” and “caring”. These words to her represented the colors orange, yellow, and blue. “I thought of bright sunny days,” she said. “A newly sprouted forest in the spring … and the beach. I chose the colors to achieve a warm color palette while adding the light blue for contrast.”
Rodriguez-Acosta chose both a “Rose of Sharon” design and a “Basket” design to represent Diane. “Both of them remind me of her strength and resilience,” she said. “The basket with its geometric lines represents strength and resilience, while the softer Rose of Sharon represents her caring and lively side.”
The Final Phase
Carolina Village Wellness Coordinator Aleen Dailey (who also happens to be Volkan’s twin sister) helped coordinate the last phase of the project: transforming the students’ paper designs into fabric quilting squares. The fabric squares were stitched by a group of several women as winter turned to spring. In April, Dailey and the women gathered in Carolina Village’s art room, a space complete with several sewing machines. The space hummed with activity as the quilters spread the squares out on a large table like puzzle pieces to determine the best visual fit.
In the following weeks, the residents stitched the fabric squares into a quilt and sent it off to Beginnings Quilt Shop for the final touches on a long arm machine, adding the embroidered names of students around the edges. The six residents who played a role in creating the quilt were Evelyn Uhrlass, Jane Gorey, Connie Stanfield, Trish Hendershot, Marilyn Hoffman and Janet Thatcher.
Gorey, 80, and Hoffman, 87, discussed the experience. An avid quilter, Hoffman grew up in Philadelphia in a creative home. Her parents were in the furniture business, and Hoffman taught herself to sew at age five. She now quilts for fun and to maintain mental dexterity. “I love matching the fabrics and doing the mathematics,” she said. “I go into a fabric store like men go into a hardware store.”
Gorey, a New York native, was tasked with sewing all the squares together. She began sewing as a teenager when her mom got her lessons “to keep me out of trouble.” Later, as a mother, she often made clothing for her children. At first, Gorey was nervous at the idea of getting all the squares to align at the top of the quilt. In the end, she was relieved to get help from the other five women involved. “It turned into a real bonding project,” she said.
The finished quilt was unveiled at A-B Tech’s Mission Health Conference Center on May 1. The seniors, students, and faculty gathered to admire the brightly colored patterns and designs and pose for photos. It was a treat for everyone who participated in the project, preserved for years to come.
The quilt will be on display, along with artifacts, at A-B Tech’s Locke Library from May 26 - August 3. Learn more about the project at Voices & Visions.
Pictured above: The top photo is of Marilyn Hoffman, who is an avid quilter and helped to piece together the Voices & Visions quilt. Below: A group shot of the Carolina Village residents who participated in Voices & Visions at A-B Tech's Mission Conference Center on May 1, the evening the completed quilt was officially unveiled.