This course will explore how works of art–in theater, opera, film, photography and visual art–tell stories through the technique of collage, the art of combining materials which are not usually associated with one another. By the technique of assemblage, the artist transforms disparate ingredients, placing them side by side and under and over one another, so that the final creation tells a deep story, based on a multi-layered text.

This fall we studied the remarkable quilts of Gee’s Bend Alabama–colorful abstract creations made from work clothes and scraps. We admired the women quilters’ invention and discussed the various geometric and non–geometric designs, the symmetry of housetop patterns and the surprise of crazy quilts, displayed in their artful needlework. To see a sample of a Gee’s Bend quilt, click here.

As a class, we attended Soon of a Mornin’, an Off-Broadway musical based on the Gee’s Bend story. There we saw how acting, singing, dancing and visuals illuminated the history of the Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, creating a theatrical collage or quilt.

Students in the class were asked to create a collage or “quilt” of approximately 8 1/2 by 11 inches in size–using whatever materials they wished to tell a story. Students were also asked to tell their story in words and to explain how and why they put the elements of their collages together. In addition to oral presentations, and at the urging of our Instructional Technology Fellow, Luke Waltzer (email), we decided that we would also create a blog so that the class could comment on one another’s creations. Luke designed and programmed the blog for these purposes.

The results of this class collage project are extraordinary: twenty “quilts” telling twenty rich stories including the story of immigration told through fragments of saris, the story of four grandparents who survived the Holocaust, the story of dancing in a New York City disco with bouncing ball strobe lights, and the tyranny of technology illustrated by left-over computer parts.

As our personal sequel to the Gee’s Bend Quilt Exhibit which showed at New York’s Whitney Museum in 2003, we now offer the viewer:

“Stories from New York City: Quilts”
IDC1001H KM24
Arts in New York City
CUNY Honors College, Baruch College, Fall 2005

–Professor Roslyn Bernstein (email)
Baruch College

The collage is a representation of where I come from and of who I am now. When looking at the piece from a distance, I wanted the viewer to recognize the shape of an eye. The eye is formed as a look/window into my life. My quilt focuses on the fact that the farther out one goes from the center, the more current it gets in regards to my life. Thus the very center of the quilt depicts the times immediately after I was born, in India. The blue fabric towards the middle stands for water, representatively change, which I had to cross in order to come to America. Everything after the blue fabric is life here in the United States.

Looking at the area before the blue fabric, there seem to be more geometric shapes, and the colors are predominantly black and white.
Geometric shapes were used to show how there really was no true openness to ideas or change while my family was in India; “thinking outside the box” was not considered. The black and white colors represent uniformity, meaning that everyone in India is obviously of the same race.

However the yellow dot is there because our life in India was actually a time of great joy and happiness. With the blue fabric however, things changes.

Fabric after that point incorporates a variety of colors and designs. Vibrant and distinct colors symbolize the energetic, diverse culture of New York. At the same time the beautiful designs display the willingness to try new things and the discovery of hidden passions. Upon leaving the eye, the rest of the quilt is covered with white fabric. White is a culmination of all the colors, and thus it can be seen as a sort of balance. The white represents how my life is a balance of everything in the quilt; all the experiences in India and in the U.S. have helped to shape a unique “me”. Finally, the whole quilt is unified because all the fabric used comes from different saris, which is the traditional Indian dress for women. I did this to show that no matter where I was, my Indian roots, values, and traditions have been cherished.

Prijo Thomas

There’s something I profusely enjoy about going to nightclubs. It’s something about being on a dance floor and feeling the vibe of the crowd. The lights, the music, the heat and sweat all play on my senses make me feel like a part of something greater.

When I dance with someone in particular, the vibe transforms into something entirely different. I feel an aura emanate from myself and my partner. The crowds fade into the background and the lights dance with us. For that one moment, it’s only the two of us and nothing else matters. We glow with delight and the vibe moves along with us. The lights and the vibe move along with us. Everyone else dances to our beat, and the moment can last forever.

Ilya Shnayder

“A Story of Hope”

This is a story of hope. It is a story of survival against an uncontrolled murderer. It is a story of quick thinking, day-to-day heroism, divine intervention, and belief. Sometimes, I don’t believe it myself. It is the story of my family. This is the story that I live my life by. There is not a time of day that I don’t remember what my grandparents have gone through. The Holocaust. There are times that I look at their pictures and realize they look like every other European Jewish refugee after the Holocaust. Then it hits me; for every one of those 6,000,000 murdered Jews, and 12,000,000 murdered total by the Nazis, there are grandchildren; spoiled, lucky, happy grandchildren, just like me, who were gruesomely suffocated, shot into a pit, lynched and murdered two generations before their birthdates. I always remember. I am always grateful to the force that saved Opa, Oma, Sabba and Savta for me.

I am extremely close to my grandparents, especially since I was the first of my 21 first cousins. I also have a huge extended loving family, and I am unendingly grateful for my life.

I want to share my grandparents’ stories after escaping the Nazis, when they left the war behind and restarted their new, extremely successful lives. I want to tell you about Opa, who after all his suffering changed his name from Moshe to Raphael, “God will heal,” and became Doctor Klapper, a leading glaucoma surgeon and internationally renowned medical authority. Oma calls herself “Erica-America” and remembers every detail about herself as a little girl, both in Europe and in the wild New York. Savta is the daughter, granddaughter, and great granddaughter of the noblest European Rabbis. Sabba was a chaplain in the navy, was at WestPoint, and a Rabbi all over the world [Australia, England, Los Angeles, WestPoint, New York 5th Avenue] and was apparently the most handsome man in New York. All four of my grandparents still work. They all enjoy the benefits of high-class society. They are like my best friends; I even called them first when I found out my SAT scores!

My grandparents do not realize how much influence they have on me. Although it is emotionally difficult tot talk about, they tell me how they fled from Europe, and about how they grew up. They are always proud, always involved, and always in my mind. Every story I would tell in my quilt would have involved them, so I tried to depict their stories, of miraculous survival and determined reconstruction, as best I could in a 12×12 piece of paper.

I replicated the “housetop” style of the quilters of Gee’s Bend, because to me, it depicts an emanation of something from a central focus in the middle. I put my grandparents in the middle (pictures I love of them) and raised them a little off the paper to show they are the central point. I put the flags from their individual countries to show that they suffered and escaped the Nazis. Only three years after the Holocaust, in 1948, Israel was founded as a Jewish state and a home for the millions of Holocaust refugees. Soon enough were my parents and ultimately, my family. (We are in Jerusalem in the picture). I made the “housetop” emanation effect from scraps of their favorite colors–blue, green and yellow–because that is a representation of the color they pass on to me every day; of love of life, valor, hope and heroism. I am not the only one who is so inspired by my grandparents, because everyone they come in contact with appreciates them, raves about them, and loves them as well.

Rachel Klapper

“The World”

There is no particular way to create a Gee Bend Quilt. Other than scraps of old clothing, a needle, and a creative mind, you don’t need anything else. Forget about dimension; forget about a ruler or a straight line; and most of all forget about preciseness. That is the beauty of art… no measurements, no principles, no lines. It is just a masterpiece conjured up in the minds of ordinary people and extraordinary people. As I stared out into space, without a clue on even where to begin on my quilt, I decided to place myself into the life of a black woman from the rural south putting together scraps of old clothing to make something special for her young children.

These quilts served an important purpose, and yet it’s amazing how something so beautiful could be created for the purpose of warmth and security. Suddenly, a new light was shed upon me. This quilt has to be vibrant. It must radiate the colors of the rainbow, the sky, the grass, the flowers, the animals, and the land. I searched and searched for the brightest colors and cut them out as if they were scraps of clothing and pieced them together in a way that had no pattern or design. I put them in the way I felt they belonged.

All the pieces were touching together, sort of the way I want the people of the world to be- together without prejudice. They were all of different shape and size, to represent the diversity of people – all unique and special. .That would be the message I would want to send out to my kids, a simple quilt with a big heart , a lot of love, and a passionate design.

Diana Shapiro

““My Creation of The Creation””

As an observant Jew, religion plays a major role in my life (as it did for the women of Gee’s Bend) and so I chose to incorporate a religious aspect into the assignment. This collage tells the story of the seven days of creation as described in the book of Genesis. Each circle is representative of a certain day of the week, and what was created on that specific day.

Day: Creation
Day 1 Sunday: A separation of darkness and light
Day 2 Monday: A severance between the waters of the sky and the waters of the oceans.
Day 3 Tuesday: Trees, grass, plants, and flowers (land)
Day 4 Wednesday: Sun, moon, stars and planets
Day 5 Thursday: Fish, birds, and insects
Day 6 Friday: Animals (both wild and domesticated), the first man and woman.
Day 7 Saturday: Sabbath- The day of rest

The base of the collage is made of a durable poster board, which I painted in varying shades of the primary colors. I used circular strokes when painting, in order to create a “vortex” effect so as to represent the “vortex of nothingness” which had been replaced by the Creation.

I cut out equal-sized circles from a large sheet of Styrofoam and covered them each with different types of paper; each capturing the theme of the day.

Day 1- I used black and white glitter to depict the separation between darkness and light.
Day 2- I covered the Styrofoam in a sea/sky landscape type of paper, and sprinkled white glitter on it to highlight the clouds and the waves.
Day 3- In order to represent the “verdancy” of the third day, I covered the Styrofoam in a green paper with a bumpy texture and then glued on a “tree”, grass, and some flowers.
Day 4- I used a bluish abstract type of paper as a background for the fourth day as seemed very “stellar” to me. I then added a moon, covered in silver glitter, a sun made of Styrofoam and golden beads and some “stars.”
Day 5- I separated this day’s circle into two separate shades blue in order to differentiate between the sky and the sea. I then added a 3-D bird to the sky part of it, and blue glitter waves and some fish to the ocean.
Day 6- The sixth day proved to be the most difficult to represent as I had to somehow depict Adam and Eve. I chose to use an image painted by Pierre Paul Rubens, title “Adam et Eve.” I also added some animals to the background, and a tree, which represents the “tree of knowledge.”
Day 7- I wanted to create a sense of serenity for the seventh and final day and so I covered the Styrofoam circle in a very basic white paper, and wrote very simply in silver glitter “rest-“ to note that this was the Sabbath, or day of rest.

I arranged all the days into one large circle so as to portray a sense of completeness and continuity- just like that of a circle whose bounds are infinite.

Rachel Berkowitz

“Transitions”

When I was first contemplating what to create, I could think of nothing. To find inspiration, I did what I always do in such matters; I simply looked out my window. I live on the 15th floor of a building that overlooks the Manhattan skyline. The onset of evening transforms the sky into a brilliant burst of colors so incredible, it always takes my breath away. This thought then linked onto my traveling experiences and my views of the entire sky encompassing the earth. These journeys have always been so valuable to me, that since the age of 7, since I’ve been traveling, plane rides have been one of my favorite pleasures. With these thoughts, I knew exactly what to base my collage on.

My collage tells the story of my traveling experiences. I started out in India, where I was born and raised until the age of 5. India is represented by the bright pink embroidered cloth, which depicts paisleys, the basic and age old design in Indian clothing. The horizontal strip ends short because my life in India ended short, when I moved to New York. The subsequent pink and rippled blue cloths represent the New York sky that I see daily through my window, changing colors quite drastically. There is yet another little piece of bright pink India in the midst of the New York sky because every year, my parents fly me to India to visit my grandparents. There is one lone building at the base of this enormous sky, not because I can view only that one building from my window, but because of the apparent emptiness in the skyline after 9/11. Lastly, there is a bird like plane soaring into new possibilities, hopefully into new countries, off the edge of the page.

In order to make this collage, I collected the brightest clothes I could find in my home. The blue and the pink are from two of my mother’s traditional Indian saris. The rest are clothes I found hidden under old items. I tried to use the sewing skills my grandmother had once tried to teach me, but they weren’t faithful during my attempt to sew the collage together. I was forced to use adhesive paste instead. But the beauty of my collage does not lie in the composure, but in the brilliance of the colors, which ultimately represent hope.

Vriti Saraf

“Ronak”

While the Gee’s Bend women sewed their quilt to protect them from the cold and to reflect their emotions, the glue and construction paper I used to make my collage-quilt shows the mentality by which I live. The “v” shaped multi-colored paper represents the different kinds of people in our community and it represents them talking and expressing their views. Each person has unique ideas on important issues such as religion and life and they express their ideas to get other people to understand them. The orange person shaped paper represents me and the question mark portrays the way in which I ask people questions to try and understand their ideas and opinions. If a person provides evidence about their views and makes me believe their view then that idea gets though the yellow barrier and I adopt the idea as my own. My understanding of life is to question everything around me and believe only what I find makes sense to me.

I titled my work “Ronak” after my name because it’s about the way I think. You see my name on the bottom right corner and the way it’s written is to express an energetic and happy mood. Even though the question mark makes it seem that I might be a confused person, I want my name to show proud that I’m a content person.

Ronak Jain

“Changing to College Cuisine”
This “quilt” represents my transition into Baruch. There are many aspects of my life that have changed significantly since I have started attending college. I have changed the way I study, how I get to school, who I spend time with, how I dress, and basically my entire lifestyle. Beyond these basic changes, however, the most interesting transformation was in the way I eat.

I have always been an indoor person. I never used to go out (much) before starting Baruch. More importantly I would never eat out. I always believed that my mom’s food was the best in the world. However, since my first week here, I come to school at eight am and leave at seven or eight pm. I spend my entire day away from home, and therefore I have begun to eat out as well. I transformed myself from someone who shunned fast food places to one whose survival depends on them. For that reason, I decided that food was the best representation of the changes that I am experiencing.

In my “quilt” I placed the coca cola logo in the middle because no matter where I go to eat, I will always drink a can of coke. Dunkin Donuts is my morning coffee place (I don’t like Starbucks). KFC, Wendy’s Taco Bell, McDonalds, Subway and Burger King have become places that supply me with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Burger King is my least favorite, so it is the one that is most hidden. Surprisingly I have begun to like fast food very much. I don’t eat (as often) at Pax, or Mozzarelli’s and therefore they are put on one side. Lastly, Lin’s Chinese Restaurant and Seven Eleven didn’t seem to fit into the fast food world but both have become favorites so they are placed sideways (separating them from the rest).

All the logos used were directly taken from the fast food places themselves. In looking for these materials, I began to understand the struggle of the women in Gee’s Bend. Even in a location full of the material I wanted, I spent hours going from place to place to collect logos. If it was such a struggle for me, then I can imagine how hard it must be to find scraps in a place where clothing was rare.

I surrounded each logo with bright colors. Many times the colors didn’t go well together but this is representative of the competition that exists between the fast food places. Their logos and the colors they use are all very different. They are not meant to work together. Therefore in adding borders to them, I tried keep the tension by using colors that clashed. However, just as the colors I used work together unknowingly to add brightness to the collage, the places work together unknowingly in feeding all the different types of college students.

Shomita Washake

“My First Computer Build”

This collage has a special meaning to be because it is made out of the boxes that contained the parts for my first self-built computer. After taking a class in Stuyvesant High School for computer building in my junior year and having my Dell computer break earlier than it should have, I decided that I was going to build my own computer. I researched for about two weeks and decided on the parts I wanted and ordered all of them from the Internet. I was every excited and my friend and I spent a few hours building the computer, installing everything and testing it. We had a lot of fun and we were successful with tour first computer, so we decided to start a business selling computers. First we built computers for friends and family. As we got more experienced, found better sources for parts, and got more knowledgeable about building computer suited to customers needs, we starting selling computers for profit. So far, all our customers have been satisfied, and the computers we built for ourselves work much better than ones we would have purchased somewhere. These computer parts mean a lot to me because they gave me a hobby and a business, and I spend free time I normally would have spent lying around doing research on new computer technology and trying to expand the business.

The process of creating the collage was pretty simple. I went into my closet and found all the computer part boxes. I starting cutting them into smaller sections and posting them onto the poster board. I had no logic or pattern for how I cut the pieces, I just cut randomly. I had no formula for how I would put them on the poster board; I would just immediately paste them into any spot so that I wouldn’t change my mind later. I wanted this college to be spontaneous and I cut and pasted the pieces without thinking. I didn’t worry about how the end result would look; I just placed the pieces wherever my hand put them first and didn’t move them. The collage does not come close to the artistic talent of the Gee’s Bend Quilters, but it tells the story of how I become interested in computers and how I started a computer business.

Jay Shafir

“My Despised Dress”

When I started working on my collage, I was disoriented and clueless as to what I want to illustrate and, more importantly, how I wanted to do illustrate it. Out of frustration and a total lack of ideas, I sat down comfortably in my sofa and picked up my all-time-favorite photo album, which includes pictures from the day I was born up to the time of kindergarten. I was flipping the pages nonchalantly, reminiscing, when I noticed IT. Yes, that was the picture I would depict on my collage.

I am walking along with my grandmother, dressed in an adorable white dress with cherries engraved on the collar and the bottom of it. There are girls marching in front and behind us, all wearing communion dresses and holding baskets filled with flowers. It’s a Catholic Holiday. I remember this day very clearly. It was one of the dramatic days that I lived through during my childhood- because of that dress.

I got it in a package from my grandfather who was in America. The dress was barely different from others I had, but there was something about it that made me hate it. Maybe I unconsciously blamed America for ’stealing’ my dad and grandpa and keeping them away from me (at that time they were working for our living). Anyhow, I do not know how I could dislike something with such passion at the age of four. And then, on that day, I was literally forced into putting this ‘lovely American dress’ on. I protested, I cried, I screamed, but there was no way my grandma would give in. Because I realized I could not have it my way I became even more furious, like a spoiled little monster. The entire procession I was sobbing until I got tired. The moment we entered home, I almost ripped the dress off me.

When I looked at the picture, a vision of America crossed my mind. Back then, at four, I knew it was on a different continent, so I imagined it as a planet, really far away from the Earth. My town, of course, was the center of the universe, and everything else revolved around it. Hence, the centerpiece of my ‘quilt’ is the silky representation of the planets, America being one of them. The background is silver in order to furnish the collage with an aura of mystery and outer space. Around it I put the black and white blocks symbolizing the developed roll of film- my memories of the childhood and the ‘American vision’ at four. Those marked with yellow are my earliest scraps of memories and also serve to balance the color on the collage. The three napkin pieces of yellow sticking out of the corner of the main piece are the sunshine rays. Yellow is such a vivid and joyful color that I always associate it with the good times of my early days. The last element of my quilt is the red ribbon that weaves throughout the collage. It represents my life, its struggles and finally, emigration from Poland (red is the co-dominant color on the Polish flag).

Aleksandra Baszynska

“A Battered American Flag”

Recently, being inspired by studying American politics, I decided to create this battered American flag. Before creating this project, I read
an article in The New York Times about an exhibit that mainly consisted of artists that felt they were ostracized by the government for expressing any sort of anti-American sentiment that may seem rebellious in a post- 9/11 world. Thus I decided I wanted to express an image of a government that is controlling. By putting the stars in the middle of the flag, it makes it seem more centralized. The smaller amount of stars means that the power is distributed unfairly, with the people not having much control.

The process by which I created my quilt is that first I got a piece of white cloth to create the white lines I needed for my version of the American flag. Then I added the silk red stripes by first stapling them on first, so that it would be easier to sew the fabrics together. After that I put the patch of the blue silk material in the middle and sewed that on. Then I added the silver stars to complete the flag. Finally I put the whole creation on a piece of cardboard to make it easier to see.

Yelena Kalontarov

“Lost”

The quilt that I constructed for CUNY Honors Arts Seminar in New York City is about the role of privacy in a person’s everyday life. I wanted to shed some light on isolation and how people usually hide the simplest stuff from one another. People just seem to be “lost” and often keep their emotions inside. It is usually very hard to interpret what a person is thinking or going through, without actually knowing the person’s social history and having a chance to talk personally. Some people just like to be alone and isolated from the rest of society.

The quilt actually also explains my innate characteristics and personality traits. I tend to remain quiet, and conceal my inner feelings and thoughts. I prefer living in a society where the bonds are no so strong, although with isolation, I would lose the ability to trust a random person. The quilt also allows me to think of life in several different ways. The artwork made me realize that there is always more than one choice and that each choice results in a different consequence. The quilt is indeed the full reflection of my character and my views on issues such as bondage and privacy.

The process of making the quilt was very interesting and pleasant. I really got to express myself using cardboard and other construction
paper. The cutting of the small boxes and the measurements taking were very tedious. I used the combination of black and white to illustrate shadow and depth perception. The actual placement positioned the “tunnel” in the center of the artwork. I used glue stick to attach some papers, although Elmer’s glue would have been a better choice. I used red, orange, and purple to stimulate creativity and hope amongst those who have gone “lost”. These colors allow the person the escape and open up new opportunities for these individuals.

Hassan Zubair

My Finalized “Project”

Each summer, I would assign myself a creative “project” to accomplish. The quilt I have made is a compilation of some of the “projects” I have completed and some that are unfinished. The heart at the center is my fifth grade project where I glued construction paper cutouts together and then sanded it down with nail filers. The heart was then coated with clear glitter nail polish to retain its current condition. As for the paper cranes, I cut out every square of paper to fold these mini cranes. I wanted to fold 1,000 but it was too time consuming and I just abandoned the project altogether. The “quilted” background was a creative work I started in my junior high school Math Team but never got to finish it. The making of this pillowcase was my introduction to sewing and I later went on to make a pillow out of old jeans. Lastly, there are the brand tags of old jeans I used to wear. With those tags, I was going to sew it onto a pillow because it reminded me of old suitcases from the Wild West that were covered with postcards, photos, stickers, etc. I wanted to replicate the same idea onto a pillow but never had the time to complete it. All the items included in my quilt are the hands-on craftwork I used to find myself doing when I was young. Putting this together has made me wish I still had the time that I had in my childhood to complete these
fun “projects.”

The process of choosing what to put onto the quilt proved quite difficult. I had so much craftwork and so little space. Therefore, I was limited to choosing four “projects” to prevent crowding on my quilt. I left out a beaded bracelet, lanyard chains, and macramé. I also had to compromise part of the pillowcase because it was too large for the quilt size. Finally, I chose to arrange it symmetrically because I’m very obsessed with balance. In artistic terms, I didn’t want one side to beheavier than the other.

Kathryn Shum

Technological Immersion

I call this collage/quilt “Technological Immersion” because it is an abstract representation of how our world today is so immersed in technology. There is technology everywhere we look; it has become an important aspect of our everyday life. I made this collage using Adobe Illustrator, a couple of parts from a computer, and bottle caps. The video card lying in the center represents technology as complex and intricately designed. The computer wire lying on the edge represents our reliance on technology; it has become sort of a comforting commodity, a necessity, which we all rely on. The coiled up wire and the circular mess in the background represents our entanglement with technology. Everything we use today is a product of technology; cell phones, computers, the Internet, games, electronics, etc. The ascending bottle caps are representative of the advancement of technology but they are also a representation of the fact that technology is improving our lives. Technology is in a sense the “stepping stones” of our lives.

Richard Tam

“Things I want to do before I die”

My collage is a compilation of some of the things I want to do before I die. I had some help coming up with this idea. My inspiration was
Avigail (a fellow classmate), We were talking outside of the vertical campus, I don’t quite remember what led me to start talking about all
my aspirations in life but she knew I had no idea for my collage so she stopped me excitedly and said “there’s your idea!!”.

On my collage I have various pictures of the things I want to do. They include but are definitely not limited to: bungee jumping, skydiving, swimming with sharks, experiencing weightlessness, running a marathon, flying a plane, taking a trip in a hot air balloon, spending New Years Eve in Times Square, going back to Hawaii, and riding an elephant through an exotic forest. The process was very simple, I thought of all the things I wanted to do, gathered some pictures, scanned them and pasted them on the 8 x 11 oak tag/construction paper combination.

Victoria Poon

“January”

My collage had to do with my encounter and relationship with someone very important to me. I spoke of him in class and I think I gave off the impression that he is very domineering but what I meant to say was that we influence each other very strongly. My collage was actually made right on a piece of calendar from the month of January, which was when I first met him. I put contact paper that had descriptions of summer over it, and filled it with dried leaves and sequins. The sequins were just for decoration but I put the leaves to symbolize autumn. I also put some lace on the outside with stickers describing winter. The summer, fall, and winter are the three seasons during which I fought with this person and we didn’t speak. We started speaking again in the spring, but our relationship was forever altered, so that’s why I excluded spring from the collage. This may seem strange but to me, the eight months during which we didn’t speak were closer in nature to what we had before the fight, and before we stopped talking. Being angry at each other and not speaking to each other was better to me than being on agreeable but casual terms.

Another element of the collage is some lavender tulle that I folded up into a rectangle and glued onto the collage. I wrote part of my name,
“Eun”, because in my culture family members sometimes call each other by the second half of their names. Also, I always wanted a tattoo of “Eun” on my hip but have always been afraid to get one. The red in which I wrote the word “Eun” symbolizes my own identity, because red is my favorite color. The person I met and whom the collage was about had “assigned” me a favorite color, which is to say, he guessed what my favorite color was and was wrong. Even though he was wrong he persisted in saying that my favorite color was purple and I that I merely hadn’t discovered it yet. Also, he never wanted me to get the tattoo. I am going to get the tattoo someday though, and in a way, the red and the word I want to get tattooed within the purple was an assertion. An interesting thing about the color issue, though, is that when my mother was a teenager her favorite color was purple and she only owned purple clothes.

So maybe he had it right somehow.

Chaeun Park

My quilt is based on a relationship that hasn’t been the same since college started. The basis for the quilt can be found at the center. The yin-yang represents two opposites attracting to form something beautiful. Each diagonal stripe represents different people in the relationship. Then, in between the stripes are my visions of how each party reacts to each other. There was a lot of detail and emotion behind every choice. For example, the blue and pink interlocking rectangles represent a bond that seemed too strong to be broken. Coming up with this idea was the easiest part of the process. I drew out many different versions until I decided on this one. My main focus was telling the story through the shapes and not through materials.

Sal Flagiello

Shalom. That’s Hebrew for hello. Actually, it’s Hebrew for several words including hello, good-bye, and peace. I choose to start with Shalom because this is a story of several hellos, many good-byes, and learning to find peace within myself. I spent this past year studying abroad in Israel where I crossed seas, repelled down cliffs, swam in oceans and climbed personal, intellectual and literal mountains. Let me tell you my story.

From the plane ride there to the flight home, the year was one new places, new people, new anxieties, new discoveries. My story begins with a snapshot of the Western Wall, a favorite spot of both tourists and natives alike, which is located in the heart of Jerusalem, the religious center for hundreds of thousands of different people, all of different cultures and beliefs. Though it’s buried under many different materials, it is the only authentic snapshot in my story, symbolizing the overwhelming flood of vivid emotions one can’t help but feel when visiting.

The snippets attached are all reminders of people, places or times. The business card belonged to Dr. Malcolm Bank, the dentist I got to know very well due to my dental emergency shortly after arrival. There’s a movies stub from the one I saw with my favorite aunt while there (did you know they have smoke breaks during the film?), and an ad for horseback riding, one of my favorite activities. You’ll find a day from my planner and a piece of a postcard I picked up in one of the youth hostels we stayed at. There’s the top of a soda can that had a special meaning for me, and the napkin from the engagement party of my friend’s brother (which I attended while there). The rest of the space is sprinkled with magazine cutouts that remind me of the dramatic haircut I got, the wedding of my sister who got married last year, the personal journey that I embarked on, and finally a baggage claim from my return flight home. Enveloping the collage is a piece of fabric from the cover of my (semi-) journal, where the rest of the story remains.

My quilt is back-dropped by material from a favorite drawstring skirt I acquired last year. Its army print is not only a tribute to the Israeli defense force and reminder of a good friend in the Israeli army, but also symbolizes the personal battles I waged overseas. A few weeks before leaving a young woman and I were waiting for the same subway in the city. We started talking and I told her about my upcoming plans for the year, confiding my overwhelming fear. She told me that if I do what I fear I will learn so much about myself; my strengths, my weaknesses, my dreams. Well over there, in a country smaller then New Jersey that is generating so much news that the media is literally flooded, I feared, I did, I learned.

Avigail Brach

This course will explore how works of art–in theater, opera, film, photography and visual art–tell stories through the technique of collage, the art of combining materials which are not usually associated with one another. By the technique of assemblage, the artist transforms disparate ingredients, placing them side by side and under and over one another, so that the final creation tells a deep story, based on a multi-layered text.

This fall we studied the remarkable quilts of Gee’s Bend Alabama–colorful abstract creations made from work clothes and scraps. We admired the women quilters’ invention and discussed the various geometric and non–geometric designs, the symmetry of housetop patterns and the surprise of crazy quilts, displayed in their artful needlework. To see a sample of a Gee’s Bend quilt, click here.

As a class, we attended Soon of a Mornin’, an Off-Broadway musical based on the Gee’s Bend story. There we saw how acting, singing, dancing and visuals illuminated the history of the Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, creating a theatrical collage or quilt.

Students in the class were asked to create a collage or “quilt” of approximately 8 1/2 by 11 inches in size–using whatever materials they wished to tell a story. Students were also asked to tell their story in words and to explain how and why they put the elements of their collages together. In addition to oral presentations, and at the urging of our Instructional Technology Fellow, Luke Waltzer (email), we decided that we would also create a blog so that the class could comment on one another’s creations. Luke designed and programmed the blog for these purposes.

The results of this class collage project are extraordinary: twenty “quilts” telling twenty rich stories including the story of immigration told through fragments of saris, the story of four grandparents who survived the Holocaust, the story of dancing in a New York City disco with bouncing ball strobe lights, and the tyranny of technology illustrated by left-over computer parts.

As our personal sequel to the Gee’s Bend Quilt Exhibit which showed at New York’s Whitney Museum in 2003, we now offer the viewer:

“Stories from New York City: Quilts”
IDC1001H KM24
Arts in New York City
CUNY Honors College, Baruch College, Fall 2005

–Professor Roslyn Bernstein (email)
Baruch College

The collage is a representation of where I come from and of who I am now. When looking at the piece from a distance, I wanted the viewer to recognize the shape of an eye. The eye is formed as a look/window into my life. My quilt focuses on the fact that the farther out one goes from the center, the more current it gets in regards to my life. Thus the very center of the quilt depicts the times immediately after I was born, in India. The blue fabric towards the middle stands for water, representatively change, which I had to cross in order to come to America. Everything after the blue fabric is life here in the United States.

Looking at the area before the blue fabric, there seem to be more geometric shapes, and the colors are predominantly black and white.
Geometric shapes were used to show how there really was no true openness to ideas or change while my family was in India; “thinking outside the box” was not considered. The black and white colors represent uniformity, meaning that everyone in India is obviously of the same race.

However the yellow dot is there because our life in India was actually a time of great joy and happiness. With the blue fabric however, things changes.

Fabric after that point incorporates a variety of colors and designs. Vibrant and distinct colors symbolize the energetic, diverse culture of New York. At the same time the beautiful designs display the willingness to try new things and the discovery of hidden passions. Upon leaving the eye, the rest of the quilt is covered with white fabric. White is a culmination of all the colors, and thus it can be seen as a sort of balance. The white represents how my life is a balance of everything in the quilt; all the experiences in India and in the U.S. have helped to shape a unique “me”. Finally, the whole quilt is unified because all the fabric used comes from different saris, which is the traditional Indian dress for women. I did this to show that no matter where I was, my Indian roots, values, and traditions have been cherished.

Prijo Thomas

In life everything changes. Of course I changed a lot as well in terms of my interests and how I think and what I think about. I got my inspiration for this quilt as I was watching MTV and recognized from the TV shows and video that society has changed so much. Particularly regarding fashion and different “fads.” I remember how baggy jeans, yo-yo’s, Pokemon, and old video games were the cool thing. Now things like polo shirts, surfer style clothes, next generation consoles, and rap music are the new “fads.”

As I was getting these ideas I wanted to see how much I changed and why I changed. After looking through countless magazines from old
subscriptions I saw how I changed and exactly why I did. I did it because I got caught up in society with “fads. And saw how my interests
kept changing from toys, cars, sports, and women. The things I think about varied in every stage of my life from a young boy to a young man.

This collage represents me and my “evolution.”

Ted Lim

The quilt, which depicts a single iris, is named Belief. Iris is a flower that symbolizes the faith of believers. The quilt uses the combined technique of weaving and mosaic to create an abstract picture of an iris growing in soil filled with nutrients. It utilizes colors as the main source for expression. It contains colors that lean on the darker, warmer side, to generate a down-to-earth feeling. The four sides of the quilt are bordered by strips of black, pink, purple-red, violet, and yellow. The background is a soil-colored orange. The iris’ petals are by purple, blue the center is represented by yellow, orange, and violet, and the stem is represented by green. The back of the quilt has been taped together with double sided tap. The white strips represent the careful stitching that was characteristic of Gee’s Bend’s quilter’s works. The white semi-transparent paper stands for the cotton batten and the stuffing.

In this quilt, the iris is growing out of the soil, which has been fueled with the color-nutrients. Black represents hard work and suffering, pink represents innocence, violet represents morals, yellow represents cheerfulness and hope, and purple-red represents passion and motivation. These combined emotions and behaviors feed the soil, which is society, and out from it grows a single iris, the symbol that faith exists in the most adverse of conditions, and that there will always be believers. The quilt is an abstract design that embodies a belief of the maker. What is the belief? It will be different for everyone who sees the quilt.

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