About this Project

In 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed 23 species for delisting from the Endangered Species Act due to extinction. This quilt honors each of these species. I chose redwork embroidery because the outlines denote absence while the red thread suggests violence. Each quilt block is a meditation on the void left by vanished beings and is emblematic of a larger story of change and loss. As we see biodiversity disappearing from every corner of the planet, these species challenge us to reconsider our relationship with our more-than-human kin, and to confront our grief over living in a wounded world.

As I have worked on this project over the last two years, I have found that my own feelings of grief and my struggle to find hope has many ups and downs and even more layers. In the end, it is an evolving process and the slow, meditative act of hand-stitching has become process-as-metaphor. 

It takes time to make a quilt and time to heal this world and ourselves.