Spring 2017 Newsletter
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA! The words sound a little strange at first. Maybe it’s because I am not sure who to say them to, or it’s because of the scope of it―a country is so much bigger than an individual and our country is enormous! Yet in many ways it is not so different from celebrating the birthday of a friend or family member. We get together, have parties, presents, cakes and candles, fireworks, and make nice speeches. In reality, we celebrate birthdays for those people and times that we are thankful for. And I am so thankful for Canada.
Canada was not my birthplace, nor have I been a Canadian for that long. So for me and many other “newcomers”, Canada’s birthday is a time to express how thankful we are for the privilege of belonging in Canada. But whether new or long-time citizens, we can all treasure the freedom, the values, the kindness and compassion found in abundance in our nation. We are blessed with the beauty and sheer immensity of our land and by the rich diversity of its peoples; we are grateful for those who sacrificed so much to build Canada, to make it a country we can be proud of.
Quilt of Belonging is our collective gift to Canada―a tribute to all its peoples who together have woven the nation’s fabric, a vision of the way our country and the world can live in peace. It is therefore not so surprising that we have been asked to take part in this year’s birthday celebrations. The theme is “Canada welcomes the world” and that is what the Quilt volunteers have done. More than 1 million visitors will see the Quilt this summer. Did you know that our new website had almost 9,000 visits in the first month alone from 163 countries? And we have been contacted by a number of schools who are making their own “Quilt of Belonging” as their special project for 2017.
Thank you to each one of you for reaching out to others, and sharing your gifts, time and talents to make this amazing gift. Thanks for your dedication and sacrifice and patience to see the dream through to completion. Most of all, thank you for giving me, your fellow man, our nation of Canada and the world what God calls “the greatest gift of all”- the gift of love!
To read more –> Spring 2017 Newsletter
While I appreciate all the hard work and effort that went into producing the book I found it to be very disappointing. The blocks should have been set out in order grouped together by continents.
I wanted to see all the Canadian blocks at the beginning of the book. Now one has to go hunting for all the First Nation blocks and not knowing all the names the index will not help.
Also shown is one eighth of the whole quilt. It would have been nice to see the whole thing.
As mentioned already I am very very disappointed.
Thank you for your comments as we are happy to clarify the issues you raised. We truly want you to enjoy the book and hopefully, the Quilt in person as well.
The Quilt book was first of all designed to enhance the visitor experience for those seeing the Quilt in person. As a person walks along the Quilt the story of each block it very easy to find because the blocks in the book appear in the order of their location on the Quilt, going from right to left. If you look at the colour tabs on the corners of each page of the book, you will see they correspond to the colour layout of the Quilt. The colour scheme mirrors the light spectrum, symbolizing everyone has a place in life. However, we allowed people to choose their own background colour because many nations have specific symbolic colours. For example, the Mohawk nation always uses purple, red is the national colour of China, Ireland’s is “Kelly green”, Finland’s is blue, Angola has a unique yellow and so on. Allowing people the right to choose where they were placed in the colour spectrum was critical to the making of the Quilt.
On the website though, we organized the blocks by continent and all native blocks within one grouping, to make it easier for researching and for use in our education resources. In this case, the block colour doesn’t affect finding individual blocks, rather they are found by name through the search engine or alphabetically under a grouping.
To answer your question about showing the entire Quilt from one end to the other in the book, we agree with you. It would have been so nice to have that visual and we and our publisher tried everything we could to do just that. But because the Quilt is so long, 120 feet, it would have taken a 17 page foldout to show it all and the cost was prohibitive. To show it on a double spread layout, the ratio of the Quilt being 12:1, each row would have been less than an inch in height, making it virtually impossible to see the individual blocks.
Is there somewhere I can see a closeup of each block, should I be unable to see the quilt in person, it would be a lovely way to truly appreciate the artistry involved in each and every block. Beautiful quilt, wonderful idea, fantastic sentiments.
Hi Diana
The best way to enjoy each block, if you cannot get up close to see it in person, is with our book. There is a good photo of each block and the story behind each of them as well. Often people who do see the Quilt in person, purchase the book to get the story and meaning behind each block. I hope you get to experience the Quilt in person someday.
The quilt is a mosaic of all that is Canada. It is amazing to see in person and realize that so many people from around the world, came to my country, settled and now call it home.
The bottom row represents our native peoples and my friends and I talked about each group that we could remember from our school history.
Thank you. A wonderful tribute to those that have immigrated to this great land.