RAE
HELLER
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2021-Present
My grandmother Sarah was a quilt maker and craftswoman. When her daughters started having children, she started making baby quilts for them, and eventually for all new children born into the family and neighborhood. Each different, and progressively expressive of her own individual style, the quilts somehow also reflected the unknowable quality of each individual's new life. Networks and generations of close and distant cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, and friends are connected by these first gifts of life.
In April 2021, anticipating the first new baby in our family since her death, I learned to quilt. I fell in love with the physicality of textiles and the opportunity to apply my art making processes in a new medium. I feel connected to my grandmother through our shared responsibility to create for others. Below are just a few of the 18 baby quilts I have gifted to loved ones. Baby quilts are an opportunity to show love and also play with the medium through smaller sketches.