In the spring of 2024, the Davidson College Art Galleries collaborated with textile artist Erika Diamond to create a community project for queer students and allies at Davidson College.
Erika Diamond (American, b. 1978) is a multidisciplinary textile artist primarily working in Asheville, NC. Diamond’s works often surround themes of protecting queer youth. In 2024, Erika Diamond exhibited her two works (In)Visibility Hoodie and 40% NC Quilt in the Van Every/Smith Art Galleries exhibition The sun still rises in spite of everything. 40% NC Quilt depicts little pink houses in the pattern of the NC State Quilt Block. The work discusses the mass housing insecurities faced by queer youth worldwide.
After viewing Diamond’s work in The sun still rises in spite of everything, a group of LGBTQIA+ students and allies worked with Diamond to collaborate on their own community quilt for campus.
Over the course of the spring 2024 semester, the Galleries hosted multiple quilt workshops, teaching dozens of students and community members how to sew their own quilt square in the NC Quilt Block pattern utilized by Diamond. Students learned how to cut patterns as well as machine and hand sew. Diamond led several of these workshops as students began to grow their skills. The squares were then combined and sewn together into a quilt by Galleries’ intern Sarah Willoughby ‘25. The quilt, each square sewn by a different student/community member, comes together in an imperfect quilt that tells the unique stories of the queer community surrounding Davidson.
The community aspect of the quilt was furthered by the material used. Students and staff donated fabric to be used in the quilt, supplemented by the Galleries’ purchase of JoAnn Fabrics’ “Pride Collection.” Diamond often uses these fabrics as a play on the “rainbow washing” or increasing commodification of pride month by companies and corporations.
This quilt will be shown around campus before it finds a more permanent home in the Lavender Lounge, a queer safe space on campus provided by the Davidson Center for Diversity and Inclusion.
