Tapestries of Experience: Digital Art Quilts

What does the art of quilting teach us about our history, struggles, and achievements?

For this project, students were asked to research the history of quilting and the artists throughout history who have produced tapestries to communicate powerful personal and public histories. Students were inspired by the books Why We Quilt: Contemporary Makers Speak by Thomas Knauer and Art Quilt Collage: A Creative Journey in Fabric, Paint & Stitch by Deborah Boschert, as well as the PBS series Craft in America. Since this course is a digital media class in design and computer programming, students were asked to translate their impressions of the quilting arts into a web-based digital quilt. Students in the class selected their own unique research topics based on ideas and experiences that were personally connected to their lives and interests. Subjects included personal family histories, significant historical moments, and contemporary social-political issues.  After research, many class discussions, and independent project mapping activities, students produced animated and interactive quilt designs using the programming language Javascript (p5js). Project outcomes took on a variety of forms. Some slowly unfold with image animations while others invite the user to interact with their mouse. Due to the Covid-19 quarantine, all work was done remotely with open source tools including Photopea and Open Processing. Most students were first-time computer programmers. This is their virtual exhibition! 

 

Bicultural Familia by Eliana Meza-Ehlert

My quilt depicts the intersection of two distinct cultures: Mexican-American and European-American. I see my bicultural heritage as an opportunity to spark conversation on ethnic and racial identities and to challenge people’s ideas on what those mean. My family’s culture is an eclectic blend of long-standing traditions, different languages, and a rich history, and is something I strive to celebrate. My quilt is an image of all four of my grandparents pieced together. Clockwise from the top left: my grandmother Janet, who immigrated to the US from London, England, my grandmother Eulogia, who immigrated from Sinaloa, Mexico, my grandfather Steve, who is from Los Angeles County, and my grandfather Ignacio, who immigrated from Durango, Mexico. I used colors and textures to capture my grandparents’ personalities, what they bring to the family, how they have shaped my beliefs, traditions, and life experiences. My grandmother, Eulogia, is depicted in shades of magenta, a color that represents compassion, kindness, and self-respect– all things that she embodies and teaches her children and grandchildren to value. I chose earthy colors and leather-like textures to represent my grandfather Ignacio because of his affinity for farming and raising animals, and his passion for leathercraft. My grandmother Janet, who was a librarian, is depicted in blue for her calm demeanor and erudite personality. The sea shown in the background when you hover the mouse over her represents her journey on the Queen Mary to cross the Atlantic ocean. Lastly, my grandfather, Steve is shown in green because of his love for hiking and nature, and his knack for investing.
Experience the project here.

 

Surviving Three Open Heart Surgeries by Alex Sammuli

This is a story of how my mom survived three open-heart surgeries and lived to tell the tail. During the heart surgeries, there was a lot of stress that was happening around my family. Many years later from her first to her last open heart surgery she has fully recovered and is now healthy and able to do things on her own again. It was hard growing up knowing that she was going into many surgeries. In this design, I include a heart to represent her heart surgeries. The flowers growing out of it are her favorite flower, Gladiolus. My design represents my mom’s good health.
Experience the project here.

 

Zoom Fatigue by Caitlyn Abragan

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students around the world have had to adjust and learn on devices from their homes for nearly a year. Zoom is a virtual classroom, where class and homework are completed digitally. Some students are thriving, and some aren’t. As a current senior, school on Zoom hasn’t been the easiest, or the greatest, to say the least. To be on my laptop for the majority of the day, completing school and personal work digitally, and attending class on Zoom for 5-6 hours a day, I am mentally and emotionally drained. I wanted to showcase what life on Zoom is like from my perspective, exhibit how tiring and difficult online school can be just from being on a screen. While I may feel charged when the day starts, Zoom life makes it go down quickly. Needing a strong connection for distance-learning, along with my parents and sibling, losing the wifi is everyone’s greatest fear during the school day. Learning from a laptop isn’t easy, but nothing ever is.  Distance-learning has been a learning curve, or blessing, for many. It shows, though, just how resilient students and teachers have been during this pandemic.
Experience the project here.

 

MMIW by Kaitlyn Phanhthaly

Missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW) is a recent movement to bring attention to the disappearance and murders of Native women and girls; many in the movement also include two-spirit and trans people under the term. The exact number of missing and murdered Native women is challenging to pinpoint, as many go unreported and the media fails to give the issue the attention it deserves. This topic is important to me because I am a young woman who is also a minority. Unless you place yourself in the shoes of these women you will never understand the pain and suffering that they have to face. You have no voice to speak for yourself once you are gone. My project showcases the faces of many Indigenous women who have gone missing as well as other elements of native culture. When clicking on the first visual, it will reveal a message that reads “Save Our Sisters” which is a phrase that is used frequently in this movement.
Experience the project here.

 

The Battle of Greasy Grass by Jakota Raven Ludwick

The Battle of Greasy Grass was a battle during the later part of the Great Sioux War of 1876. This battle specifically was one of the only and most significant battles won by the Natives during this time. As a Lakota Sioux, this battle is incredibly important to me, not only as a piece of my ancestral history but also as one of the dozen battles won by Native Americans towards the end of the 1800s. The battle also led towards the promotion and idolization of both Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, two Native shirt-wearers that I look up to.  The major design aspect of my quilt is a typical Lakotan tapestry as well as a rendition of the Battle of Greasy Grass. Alongside these aspects, I’ve included images of Sitting Bull and the Crazy Horse Monument, as well as a tomahawk and Teepee; two important Lakotan Symbols.
Experience the project here.

 

Trashed Fashion by Collette McCurdy

Fast fashion, a term used to describe the constant production of new clothing products, has become increasingly popular for large corporations and consumers in Western countries in recent years. What many fail to realize, however, are the short and long-term impacts that the constant production of clothing has on both the environment and people across the globe. I came to understand the importance of this topic when watching the documentary River Blue. I learned that the dyes used to make clothing were polluting rivers in Asian countries. The images I saw were disturbing—photos of murky, neon orange rivers that served as the main source of water for people in Bangladesh. Many residents living nearby these polluted rivers had lost their sense of smell due to toxins. The clothing industry, which releases 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, needs to be held accountable.
Experience the project here.

 

Beyond Immersion by Allana Maldonado

My design is based on the psyche of mental illness. It is a visual showing the realm beyond the abled mind. Throughout the entirety of my life, I’ve been immersed in a world where mental illness is the norm. The accuracy of my piece lies in my ability to understand, cope, and adjust to this environment as well as dissect it. I hope to reach those without these experiences and act as a switch to enable a deeper understanding in those who don’t experience the same challenges. My design displays social anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and body dysmorphia. This visual design is meant to complicate, yet attract a mind into exploring each factor through lighting changes, detail impairment, and complexity.
Experience the project here.

 

Covid-19 with the Rodriguez by Aleksandra Aceves

My family’s start of 2021 began with all of us contracting Covid-19 and we deeply struggled to make it through. Some of my family members were hospitalized while others struggled financially. Throughout it all, my family stuck together even though we couldn’t see each other due to quarantine. Through thick and thin, we helped each other out and made it through. The Coronavirus hit my family hard. But, my aunts, uncles, and cousins prayed, brought us medicine and food. They cared for us in any way they could. Throughout my quilt, I used colors, a geometric outline, and words to represent my topic. Black and red represent the Coronavirus germs, the color beige shows a cross to represent my family’s religion, Catholicism. Lastly, I used family names in each quad in the cross to represent what and who we were praying for.
Experience the project here.

 

Our Bodies, Our Rights by Lydya White

Women and people with female reproductive organs deserve the right to their bodies to make decisions for themselves. For a long time, the government has tried to control female reproductive organs. This topic matters to me because I have female reproductive organs and I want to be able to make my own choices for my body and I think everyone with female reproductive organs should have those same rights. It isn’t fair that a male-dominated government gets to make choices for all the women. My design shows a female reproductive organ with different forms of female contraceptives around it. I made it automatic so that the user watches as the restrictions over the female reproductive organ and female contraceptives disapear. 
Experience the project here.

 

I Belong with My Parents by Lauren Brown

The subject of my project is about separations between children and their families at the U.S / Mexican border. This happens because children are kept in the United States while their parents are deported. I wish no one had to experience these situations of parent/child separation.  No child should ever be separated from their family or left alone in a cage with nothing but tinfoil for a blanket. Cases like these cause emotional distress and heartbreak. My image shows a girl as the centerpiece with a heart above. The background shows the colors of the Mexican flag with the border wall. The title, “I Belong with My Parents” is the centerpiece of my quilt.
Experience the project here.

 

Hero to Homeless by Bergen Jay Richter 

My quilt demonstrates the consequences that the Vietnam war had on many soldiers. Many soldiers returned to the United States with severe PTSD, which sometimes led to drug abuse and or homelessness. During those times, they received little to no help to combat these struggles. In my opinion, these soldiers were basically dumped by the government that they fought so hard for. I started to think about this topic because I’ve been thinking a lot about San Diego’s homeless population over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. I feel like the homeless are an at-risk population, but I have not seen substantial support or infrastructure to help them. I started to think about some of their origins and discovered that San Diego has the 3rd highest population of homeless vets. I’ve always been interested in the Vietnam war and I wanted to delve deeper into how this terrible war affected the soldiers. For my project, I replicated military-like styles. The pattern is meant to look like a medal, and the surrounding colors are military colors. I also included Vietnam veteran patches and cardboard to represent the before and after. In the middle of my quilt, I used images of soldiers in the war fading into the effects of war.
Experience the project here.

 

The Second Wave by Jackie Galindez

 

 

 

Synchronized Sound – Steamboat Willie by Fernanda Ugarte

Walt Disney’s film, Steamboat Willie, changed the future of animation. He created the first-ever sound animation that went in time with what the characters on screen did. Since then animations all over the world have added sound. This topic matters to me because I am looking to be a future character animator. I am able to see how far animation has come and I plan to be a part of the industry that is always seeking new ways of telling stories today. In my project, I show the iconic animated scene of Mickey driving a steamboat that changes from black and white into color. This was designed to represent how sound added more value to silent animations. During that fade into color, musical notes appear on the screen and with the click of the mouse, music starts playing. Little bugs follow in after to make it look as if they are playing the music, and Mickey’s boat floats up and down along with the background moving to make it appear as if he is really moving downstream.
Experience the project here.

 

The Wright Brothers First Flight by Jacob Verduzco

This quilt explores the invention of the modern aircraft. The animation sequence starts with the Wright Brothers’ first invention, moves through a warplane scenario,  and ends with a standard commercial plane. Traveling is very important to my family and me, every year we take a flight to Mexico to visit family members. A journey like this is only possible due to the invention of the modern aircraft. 
Experience the project here.

 

Let Them Eat Cake by Ella Marfo

My design represents the impact of “let them eat cake”, a famous Queen Marie Antoinette quote that referred to her nonchalant attitude towards the poor and suffering in France. This attitude later led to her execution for misuse of power. After watching the film, Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola, I became infatuated with her life from the glamour to the gore. The aesthetics really appealed to me, which automatically piqued my interest in pursuing the topic. My objective with my design is to teach people that there is always madness behind beauty. While using such glorious colors and eye-catching visuals, I distract you from the gore behind the animations; as Marie Anotonitte did during her reign.
Experience the project here.

 

Mad Doctrine by Max Wertheimer

The Mad Doctrine was a military strategy developed during the Cold War that stated “Mutual assured destruction” if any country were to use nuclear weapons in war. The Mad Doctrine would assure the destruction of humanity. As Ronald Reagan once said, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” I decided to use a design strategy using hundreds of small colored patches.  Unfortunately, this technique limited the usability of my project, but I believe it stays true to the message. Visually, I have a tree, an icon of nature, switch into a mushroom cloud and a dilapidated landscape to show that regardless of where anyone is or what country uses this weapon, all will perish and feel the effects. It will not stop at borders.
Experience the project here.

 

American Flag by Francesca Diaz

Political stances and issues are typically frowned upon. But, is it a bad thing to discuss the political society we live in? Through my animation, I show how many more political parties there are in America beyond the dominant two. Our modern media mainly focuses on the right and the left. But, I believe the younger generation needs to fully understand that there aren’t just left or right sides– there are many different political stances. The American flag appears first and then it slowly starts to fade away to a revised American flag that shows the colors of all the many political parties.
Experience the project here.

 

Global Warming and its Impact on the Arctic by Stacy Quintero

For my project, I decided to focus on the polar ice caps. I specifically looked into how global warming is dramatically changing the climate in the Arctic. This topic matters to me because I have a strong interest in both the environment and animals. Seeing animals that live in a habitat that is being destroyed by climate change saddens me. For my project, I decided to put an image of polar bears in the middle, with a blue and white color scheme around it, when moving your mouse around the design changes. When you click your mouse, the pattern design changes colors to a red and orange color scheme and the image in the middle also changes. 
Experience the project here.