Created for the UN Women UK “Hope In Action” Summer Party, this mixed media painting celebrates the act of communal making.

It was such an interesting challenge gathering disparate reference elements, and combining them to create a coherent whole. Below I share the sources of imagery, and how I assembled them into a narrative scene… with a light peppering of quilt history!

I started with a quilt made by my mum for my son Leon when he was born. Needlecraft has always been a big part of my life - from soft furnishings to clothing. As receiver, giver, and maker, it combines practicality with decoration, a physical record of loving creativity.

The traditional collective practice of making quilts is done by a group of people called a ‘quilting bee’. Individuals contribute ‘fat quarters’ of scrap material, and sew component parts ‘blocks’ to an agreed design. The blocks are sewn together to reveal the tesselated pattern of the quilt top. Then the quilting bee meets to sandwich a layer of batting between the top and the backing, and finally secure the layers by stitching ‘quilting’ patterns through the full thickness.

The finished quilt would typically be gifted as a practical heirloom, for a wedding, new home, etc.
I downloaded some licence-free images from Pexels showing an appropriately diverse selection of ‘sewing’ hands. I wanted to reflect the community aspect of a sewing bee, and also the mentoring that is inherent in communal quilting.
Leon (who turns 20 tomorrow) modelled how the sewing hand positions (above) would cause his quilt to rumple and fold (below):

The painting uses the brand colours of the charity instead of the colours of Leon’s quilt:

Answers are gathered from Summer Party guests (when they checkout from the event ticket purchase) to the question: “What holds us together as we drive change?”. I had access to some responses from the early bird ticket purchasers.

I painted in stages, assembling elements along the way:

Having completed the quilt I started adding the responses, as though stitched on in the quilting process. But something was missing…

I remember from my quilting days that you would always have scissors, thread, and a tape measure nearby. This reminded me of Michele Ashby’s beautiful pastel still lifes (shared with permission).

Michele very kindly allowed me to integrate them into the painting. You can see I made some adjustments to help them fit the scene:

On the evening of Wednesday 24th June I will be working LIVE at the Hope In Action Summer Party, adding more words and phrases to complete the painted quilt.

Hosted in The Mall Galleries, surrounded by the Society of Women Artists’ 165th annual exhibition, there will be a raffle of paintings and sculpture. The phenomenal jazz harpist and vocalist Tara Minton will be playing live:

The UN Women UK charity aims to “go beyond crisis response — enabling long-term, systemic work that helps prevent violence and advance gender equality across the UK and around the world”

There are still a few final release tickets available:

Party info & tickets

Here’s a little video of painting process, set to Tara’s music:

I hope this inspires you to bring disparate elements into a creative project, let me know how you do that!

Gail x

The Windmills Of My Mind

What holds us together as we drive change?