As emails and calls pour into congressional offices protesting the Trump administration’s actions, one Utah advocacy group is taking a different approach: hand-delivering protest quilts.
Each quilt contains dozens of personalized messages from women all over the state written on 10x10 inch squares of cloth. Some wrote inspirational quotes. Others called for the protection of checks and balances. They were then stitched together by members of Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
In May, each U.S. senator and representative for Utah will receive one made specifically for them.
“This quilt project is a representation of so many women who are concerned and uncertain about our country and the future in politics and what's going on, and wanted to be able to make a difference,” said Laura Lewis Eyi, Mormon Women for Ethical Government’s public relations specialist.
The project is called “Quilting for the Constitution: Peace by Piece.” The idea kicked off at their annual conference, and in late March a coalition called Women Building Peace, of which Mormon Women for Ethical Government is a member, launched the project.
Sewing and quilting for a political cause has deep roots in American history.
It’s called craftivism, and it’s been used in feminist and political movements for centuries. In the 1980s, thousands of squares made up the AIDS memorial quilt to publicly memorialize the people lost to the epidemic. Before suffrage, women used quilts to express their political ideas.
That’s part of why Mormon Women for Ethical Government chose quilts as their medium for protest.
“Historically, it's a way that our foremothers have gathered together as women as they quilted together, to talk about issues that were important to them,” Eyi said.
That connection resonated with Shelby Hintze, another member of the advocacy group.
“I think for so long, like quilting or knitting or any of those kind-of female-coded hobbies have been really disparaged and kind of ‘Oh, that's a grandma hobby,’” Hintze said.
“I just really love the reclaiming of fiber art and crafting that we've seen recently, and using that as a part of activism.”
The quilts for Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis are complete, woven and colored to resemble American flags, but Eyi said they could expand if they receive more squares.
The ones for Reps. Celeste Malloy, Mike Kennedy, Blake Moore and Burgess Owens are still in progress.
After the most recent election, attorney and member Nancy Sylvester said she went down a “rabbit hole of worry” and joined Mormon Women for Ethical Government to find a way to take action.
“What's powerful about this is that a quilt is not a letter or phone call,” Sylvester said. “So lots of people have been calling and writing their legislators. A letter or phone call can just be filed away or placed in a database somewhere, but a quilt is durable and it grabs attention.”
For her square, Alisa Allred Mercer, a member of the Davis School Board, drew a picture of a sunrise and wrote, “The light will come speak truth.”
“I hope that they will know that we are watching, that we are paying attention, that we know why we elected them, and that we hope that they will stand up and have our courage behind them to be able to strengthen the separation of powers in our government,” Mercer said.
Eyi said the quilts are a tangible representation of each woman’s voice speaking to their congressional leaders.
“Stitched together, it represents something really big and really important and really powerful, and how we can unite together in our voices and then present something that is much larger than just one individual voice,” Eyi said.
She wants the recipients of the quilts, like Lee and Curtis, to see that, too.
“We hope that our legislators will see this powerful group of women united together, and that we're willing to engage peacefully,” Eyi said. “We want our legislators to understand and represent us in Congress, and to stand up for our democracy.”
