Patchwork Art Blankets by Refugee Women: ‘Femmage’
Howarth, Lucy (2022) Patchwork Art Blankets by Refugee Women: ‘Femmage’. In: Weaving Cultural and Personal Memory: Academic Symposium, 28/04/2022, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge.
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I presented this paper at the symposium: ‘Weaving Cultural and Personal Memory’, The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge.
Margo Selby X Love Welcomes – Patchwork Art Blankets by Refugee Women.
Love Welcomes is a London-based social enterprise working to give refugee women long-term income-generating skills. In February 2022 British textile artist and designer Margo Selby ran patchworking workshops as a volunteer and trustee, to design and make the first ‘Patchwork Art Blankets’, using textile remnants from her interiors, apparel and accessories business. The initial series comprised 25 – they sold out within hours of being offered online,
with 100% of the profits going to Love Welcomes, and the women they support.
Each blanket is a unique composition; colour blocks and patterns of varying scales are constructed and stitched together with an instinctive and freeform approach – ‘my way’ like
Gee’s Bend. They are an idiosyncratic archive of Margo Selby design filtered through the sensibilities of the makers and the collaborative process of making.
Quilting is a traditional textile practice, certainly for thrift, long-before environmental concerns – but primarily as an expression of love – to keep the family warm. ‘Art Quilting’ elevates the
craft and, since second-wave feminist artists of the 1970s it has become a vital and politicised artform. This is a language that on-the-move global women can speak – 9 different countries are represented in the first cohort of makers. Most importantly though, the sewing circle is a space for women to work together creatively, and share their stories. The rich eclecticism of the compositions represents the experiences and journeys of these
women. Patchworking is a process of piecing things together.
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