350 reasons quilt

the names-- a bestiary for the oil spill

2010-05-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

I meant to write something here for Earth day updating everyone about the quilt, but time seems to be escaping my life continuously. These last few weeks, I’ve been spending time with several peoples’ uncontainable grief, breaking-- again-- my heart which was already always broken. I have been reading and thinking about grief... and loving. The way we love even though we know that everything dies.

Meanwhile it is Spring in California and everything is very much alive. All morning we’ve been watching a pair of tiny wrens bring straw from the garden into their birdhouse one piece at a time. The house finches have laid four blueish eggs in their nest over the kitchen window. The farm is covered with roses and irises and the bees are out in the warm air working at their continuous gathering. We’ve had an unusually rainy year this year, so all the wildflowers are banks of color on the hills. It is beautiful.

And my mind wanders. Because it is also Spring in the Gulf of Mexico. The brown pelicans have been building their nests in the wetlands of Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi. Five species of sea turtle are finishing their journey to sandy shores where they, too, will lay their precious eggs. Blue fin tuna are returning from the open ocean to spawn in the warm waters where the Mississippi river empties her giant body into the gulf. Songbirds- orioles, warblers, swallows-- are at the peak of their migration North over the blue circle of the Gulf on exhausted wings, waiting to reach land again. Spring brings new life. Fragile life. Everywhere.

This oil spill will wash up on the new life of nearly everything: grasses, sedges, birds, fish, people. The broken rig that continues to spill hundreds of thousand of gallons of crude oil into the gulf shows no sign of stopping-- or being contained. News outlets warn of the worst environmental disaster in the US in recent history. Recent must mean in the last few weeks, because these exact coastal communities and ecosystems were shattered by Katrina five years ago. And last month 31 miners were killed in Appalachian mines, a tiny fraction of the devastation caused by mining practices that have endangered local communities, filled in thousands of miles of streams and destroyed more than 450 mountains-- another area the size of Delaware. That seems like a pretty huge environmental disaster to me. Who gets to say which area the size of Delaware is bigger, land or sea?

The news measures time and size in peculiar ways. My friend Sarah who works as an eco chaplain in Appalachia, recently wrote about the cumulative loss of human life and health over time in her mountains-- how it far outstrips the death toll of miners last month. I remember my shock, cleaning up the Cosco-Busan spill in San Francisco Bay, at lifting, not oiled birds, but the stiff bodies of raccoons out of the grass and mud of the Berkeley Marina. They had come down to feast on small contaminated fish washed up on the shore. Like sludge from mines and all toxins, oil moves up the food chain, concentrating itself in larger animals. But we never see cancer declared an environmental disaster.

Appalachia and the Gulf Coast have a lot in common. They contain our poorest and sickest communities in the US, the roots of our deepest music, some of the greatest biodiversity we have, and they are continually being decimated by our collective inability to change our lifestyle.

This is not special calculus. It explains itself.

You can see it with your eyes, reach out and touch it. Except we don’t. Its definitely easier not to. In my reading about grief, denial is the first stage. The one that allows us to continue living, just barely, doing what has to be done. It keeps us from really feeling and so it is useful temporarily, but dangerous in the long term. Adam swam in the Gulf of Mexico every summer of his life, on the beaches of Florida that are now state emergencies. He’s been reading me the news this week, full of names he knows, full of sadness. And I haven’t listened. Not really. Numbness has come, tinged with helplessness, blame, denial. But nothing else. Until this morning. We found two tiny unhatched eggs in an old nest and I thought, suddenly, of Hawksbill sea turtles, a species I love. How their eggs each contain something precious, one more body to add (the way we do with endangered species) to the life count: the ones still left. And I thought of Joanna Macy's Bestiary, which includes the Hawksbill. In grief, it is small details that move us out of denial: particular names, colors, what was heard, remembered. In the presence of these, denial breaks down into everything else: anger, despair, fear, sadness, breath, and, eventually, resilience.

The details are so important. To remember is not the opposite of to forget. It is the opposite of to dis-member. The opposite of undoing our membership in life. The opposite of not seeing, not touching the particulars of everything. I’ve heard a lot of people cursing our government, the conscience-less corporations, the people who created this disaster. I myself have spent all week responding to Adam’s memories with educated venom and statistics. But this morning I remembered one name. I started to remember myself, and the tears came, and the real anger came, and words came, and movement. Here are some names to re-member that we can see and touch, can go on living with a broken heart. They begin to move beneath the news, the measurements, to the heart of everything: our life and resilience; our ability, when we are present in our senses, to respond.

The names*:

Hawksbill Turtle

Brown Pelican

Alligator Gar

Tripletail

Tilefish

Green Sea Turtle

Schoolmaster

Blackfin Snapper

Red Snapper

Cubera Snapper

Ballyhoo

Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle

Blue Angelfish

Queen Angelfish

Sqirrelfish

Black Driftfish

Sailfish

Mako-Shortfin Shark

Mako-Longfin Shark

Human

Skipjack Tuna

Leatherback Sea Turtle

Loggerhead Sea Turtle

Seaside Sparrow

Clapper Rail

Mottled Duck

Bermuda Chub

Hogfish

Scrawled Cowfish

Smooth Puffer

Pinfish

Spot

Escolar

Grey Snapper

Dog Snapper

Ibis

migrating songbird families:

Warblers

Orioles

Buntings

Flycatchers

Swallows

Mahogany Snapper

Lane Snapper

Silk Snapper

Blue Marlin

Sand Tilefish

Manta

Tarpon

Southern Kingfish

Gulf Kingfish

Atlantic Croaker

Planehead Filefish

Striped Bass

Royal Tern

Sandwich Tern

Least Tern

Striped Mullet

White Mullet

Black Grouper

Yellow Mouth Grouper

Gag Grouper

Scamp Grouper

Comb Grouper

Tiger Grouper

Yellowfin Grouper

Wilson's Phalarope

Red-necked Phalarope

Ruff

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper

Pilotfish

Lemon Shark

Spiney Cheek Scorpionfish

Yellowtail Snapper

Leatherjack

Atlantic Thread Herring

Gulf Toadfish

Pigfish

Red Porgy

Gulf Flounder

Southern Flounder

Broad Flounder

Spinner Dolphin (Long-snouted)

Striped Dolphin

Creole Fish

Black Drum

French Angelfish

Bluefish

Bigeye

Blue Whale

Bottlenose Dolphin

Clymene Dolphin

Fin Whale

Bighead Sea Robin

Smalltooth Sawfish

Largetooth Sawfish

Laughing Gull

Reddish Egret

Rosegate Spoonbill

Wenchmen

Jack Crevalle

Bar Jack

Horseeye Kack

Spinner Shark

Silky Shark

Bull Shark

Blacktip Shark

Oceanic Whitetip Shark

Dusky Shark

Carribbean Reef Shark

Sandbar Shark

White Shark

Yellow Rail

Black Rail

Snowy Plover

Piping Plover

Wilson’s Plover

American Oystercatcher

Swordspine Snook

Fat Snook

Tarpon Snook

Commen Snook

Bank Sea Bass

Rock Sea Bass

Black Sea Bass

Sowerby's Beaked Whale

Sperm Whale

Atlantic Spadefish

Melon-headed Whale

Striped Burrfish

Bay Wiff

Sand Seatrout

Spotted Seatrout

Siver Seatrout

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin

Blainville's Beaked Whale

Fraser's Dolphin

Gervais' Beaked Whale

Risso's Dolphin

Rough-toothed Dolphin

Mountain Plover

Parasitic Jaeger

Pectoral Sandpiper

Sei Whale

Short-finned Pilot Whale

West Indian Manatee

Southern Stingray

Atlantic Stindray

Bluntnose Stingray

Black Crowned Night Heron

White Ibis

Black Skimmer

Frigate Bird

Round Scad

Redtail Scad

Humpback Whale

Killer Whale

Minke Whale

Irish Pompano

Porcupine Fish

Sand Perch

Greater Yellowlegs

Herring Gull

Wahoo

Atlantic Sturgeon

Long-billed Dowitcher

Long-tailed Jaeger

Marbled Godwit

Mountain Mullet

Bonefish

African Pompano

Cuvier's Beaked Whale

Dwarf Sperm Whale

False Killer Whale

Thresher Shark

Alabama Shad

Bay Anchovy

America Eel

Franklin's Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Glaucous Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Iceland Gull

Northern Right Whale

Pantropical Spotted Dolphin

Bryde's Whale

Pygmy Sperm Whale

Red Head Scaup

Lesser Scaup

Snowy Egret

Dunlin

Black Margate

Porkfish

Sheepshead

Cory’s Shearwater

Pygmy Killer Whale

Northern Gannet

Neotropic Cormorant

Seabream

California Gull

Brown Noddy

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

Hardhead Catfish

Bullet Mackerel

Frigate Mackerel

Golden Crab

Double-crested Cormorant

Anhinga

Masked Booby

Eastern Oyster

Gafftopsail Catfish

Silver Perch

Grey Tigerfish

Queen Menhaden

Bearded Brotula

Longbilled Dowitcher

Western Sandpiper

Lightning Whelk

Blue Crab

Stone Crab

Fiddler Crab

American Alligator

Caspian Tern

Gull Billed Tern

American Woodcock

Grass Porgy

Jothead Porgy

Saucer-eye Porgy

Whitebone Porgy

Knobbed Porgy

Ocean Tigerfish

Yellow Jack

Thayer's Gull

Upland Sandpiper

Whimbrel

Atlantic Oyster

Apalachicola Oyster

Kumamoto Oyster

American Cupped Oyster

Breton Sound Oyster

Sanderling

Blue Runner

Spotted Pinfish

Fat Sleeper

Sharksucker

Rainbow Runner

Ladyfish

Rock Hind

Pomarine Jaeger

Boat-tailed Grackle

Virginia Rail

Graysby

Speckled Hind

Yellowedge Grouper

Coney

Red Hind

White Shrimp

Brown Shrimp

Pink Shrimp

Glossy Ibis

Yellow-nosed Albatross

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel

Marbled Grouper

Goliath Grouper

Red Grouper

Misty Grouper

Warsaw Grouper

Snowy Grouper

Nassau Grouper

American Woodcock

Baird's Sandpiper

Black Skimmer

Queen Snapper

Silver Jenny

Little Tunny

Gulf Killfish

Tiger Shark

Yellowfin Mojarra

Nurse Shark

Green Moray Eel

Spotted Moray Eel

Blue Striped Grunt

Black Tern

Roseate Tern

Black-legged Kittiwake

Black-necked Stilt

Bonaparte's Gull

Tomtate

French Grunt

White Grunt

Pudding Wife

Scaled Sardine

Bluntnose Jack

Cobia

Clearnose Skate

Roundel Skate

Remora

Atlantic Sharpnose Shark

Vermillion Snapper

Oilfish

Atlantic Bonita

Spanish Sardine

Blue Parrotfish

Rainbow Parrotfish

Queen Parrotfish

Red Drum

Chub Mackerel

Kind Mackerel

Spanish Mackerel

Cero

Spotted Scorpionfish

Bigeye Scad

American Avocet

Lookdown

Greater Amberjack

Lesser Amberjack

Almaco Jack

Banded Rudderfish

Southern Puffer

Guaguanche

Southern Sennet

Scalloped Hammerhead Shark

Great Hammerhead Shark

Bonnethead Shark

Great Barracuda

American Golden-Plover

Semipalmated Plover

Black-bellied Plover

Atlantic Needlefish

White Marlin

Blackcheek tonguefish

Longbill Spearfish

Inshore Lizardfish

Albacore Tuna

Yellowfin Tuna

Blackfin Tuna

Bigeye Tuna

Florida Pompano

Permit

Palometa

Swordfish

Atlantic Cutlassfish

Houndfish

Short-billed Dowitcher

Stilt Sandpiper

White-rumped Sandpiper

Solitary Sandpiper

Spotted Sandpiper

Willet

* this list is not exhaustive, and includes no plants, algae, fungi, sponges or coral

video of the quilt

2009-11-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a video up on you tube of the quilt! It was taken at the very end of the day, after the action was over. The first part of it is rising tide bikers messing around on the (totally rocking pedal powered!) speaker system, and after that there's a bunch of footage of the quilt. About 1000 people walked through it taking pictures and getting inspired:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRURRBRbIT4

Thanks for all of your participation so far!

America.

(Tell people if you think they still want to make squares!)

Its already November!

2009-11-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

Hello friends!

Here in California, we're having cool sunny days full of the sweet smell of leaves drifting all over the place. Everything feel like fall, so beautiful! I continue to see the hummingbirds that come to our windows to drink from the passion flowers and thinking "Oh! I should make a square of that!" I haven't made any new squares since the action Oct 24th, but we continue to receive them by mail, and if anyone you know would like to make one, please encourage them to!

Here are some of the pictures from the action(s) Oct 24th... It was a beautiful day! The one at the top is the quilt laid out at Dolores Park, with San Francisco in the background. You can see people sewing the new squares together... by the end of the morning we had another panel plus extras. The next one is Justin Herman Plaza, where 1000 people walked through the quilt exclaiming over their favorite squares and took photos... it was so exciting to see the idea of the quilt as a whole piece emerge after focusing on putting all of the parts together for so long! Lastly, you can see the 3-5-0 panels in front of the San Francisco skyline.

We're hoping to have a website up soon that will have a gallery of each of the squares, who made them, plus the stories we received with the squares so that everyone can see all of the care and beauty that the quilt has sewn into it.

Fall blessings,

America.

Oct 24th, 2009

2009-10-24T22:26:00.000-07:00

What an amazing day!

It was amazing to watch the sunrise this morning (while we were frantically packing stacks of folded quilt panels, flags, and posters) and know that it had been greeted in New Zealand many hours before by banners and prayers for this day.... 4500 action, in 179 countries... the images are incredible: www.350.org/slideshow They come not a day too soon. Congress starts debating the US's stance for Copenhagen and the Climate this Tuesday. Make sure they know you support 350!!!

Dolores Park this morning was sunny and beautiful, and many people stopped by to see the 11 giant panels stretched out on the hill. While we were there, another panel was sewn by hand, so we had 12 for the big rally at Justin Herman Plaza. I'm too tired to describe the whole day, but look for the story tomorrow. Here's our picture behind a polar bear and a little girl, in the Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/10/24/MNBD1AA9RT.DTL&object=%2Fc%2Fpictures%2F2009%2F10%2F24%2Fmn-greenpeace25__0500760444.jpg

I haven't counted, but we have somewhere around 180 squares now, and many more on the way! We'll keep collecting them until we get to 350 (so make one if you haven't). I'll be taking the quilt to schools and community groups to talk about the atmosphere, global warming, and the stories of the quilt. f you'd like the quilt to visit your community, please be in touch!

Love and gratitude for everything that everyone has done for the quilt, and for this day!

America.

3-5-0

2009-10-21T17:00:00.001-07:00

Its craziness around here!

2009-10-21T14:23:00.001-07:00

Hello friends!

The whole living room here on the farm is covered with squares and panels! In the last few days we have received so many squares that my attempts at counting have been undermined by the priority of getting them all laid out and sewn together. The 350 Reasons quilt is looking beautiful! I think we have somewhere near 200 squares arriving or arrived now, with many people bringing their contributions to Dolores Park on Saturday to sewn them in there.

This week, we've received a bunch of squares form children, most of them drawn with markers, and they are the best reason of all the reasons-- their pictures of Earth, surrounded by their handprints and hearts seem to be a theme and it open me up wider and wider to see them.

Hopefully many of you reading will be able to make it to the action this weekend. We'll be at Dolores Park from 9- 2:30 and then we're moving the quilt to Justin Herman Plaza where it will be part of the giant gathering of 350 actions there from 3-5.

After the 24th, we'll keep sewing in squares until we get 350, so please think of something you love about life and make a square if you haven't already. I will be traveling with the quilt to different schools and communities around the Bay to share about the stories in the quilt and our atmosphere, so if you know of anywhere that might be good place for that, let me know!

Three days left until the big day and it's going to be enormous-- there will be over 4000 actions in 170 countries, so make sure to go to one nearby to you. You can find all of them with an interactive map at: www.350.org

Best to all of you in these last few days!

America

quilt update!

2009-10-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

Hello friends!

The squares are really starting to come in now-- we get about 5 a day and they're coming from all over the world now, many people I don't know. I just got back from the first day of the Bioneers conference, where part of the quilt is on display at the youth area and the youth are making prayer flags to be incorporated into the quilt! Please come by and see it if you're at Bioneers!

All three of the large center panels that spell out 3-5-0 are complete. I'll post pictures soon!

Here is the statement of intent I wrote for the quilt earlier this week. I meant to post it yesterday for the blog action day on climate change, so here it is, one day late:

Statement of intent for the 350 Reasons Quilt

Humanity has never faced a challenge as enormous as climate change. For the first time ever in our history and pre-history, our choices are affecting the entire planet. And unlike other collapses, we are all in this one together. We have, right now, in our lifetimes, a quickly shrinking window of time to evolve into an entirely different relationship with each other and the planet.

The movement that is growing to meet this challenge now is astounding in its breadth and possibility. To begin with, on Oct 24th, over 2000 actions will take place in nearly every country in the world-- the largest day of action for the environment in history, and possibly the largest global demonstration of solidarity around one thing-- the number 350-- ever.

350 is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (in parts per million). For most of human civilization-- from neanderthals right up until 200 years ago-- Earth’s atmosphere has stayed at roughly 275 parts per million, carefully balanced by the giant ecosystems of our planet. In just 200 years, we have pushed that number up to its current level of 390 parts per million carbon dioxide which continues to rise by 2 every year. Earth is like a giant body--like us, she stays relatively healthy even under stress until that day when too little sleep, too little nutrients, poor water, viruses, whatever, combine to push us the whole organism over the edge.

That happened dramatically two years ago in the summer of 2007 when 25 percent of the ice that has been locked up in the arctic for millions of years melted in just under 3 months. Scientists who have been forecasting and warning us about climate change were shocked. We had past the buffer of Earth’s resiliency. James Hansen and his team at NASA published their report a few months later, stating: "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." That is such strong language for a peer reviewed paper.

The good news is, we know exactly what we have to do. We have to get back down below 350 parts per million CO2 and we have to do it fast. Because of the buffer of Earth’s complexity and resilience to stressors, global warming has a 30 year time lag. In other words, the changes we are experiencing now are the result of carbon levels in the atmosphere 30 years ago, in 1979. The results of the carbon we’ve now loaded into the air will be felt by us and our children 30 years from now. So no matter what, global warming will get worse before it gets better. But if it’s going to get better at all, we have to act immediately.

I have great hope for this challenge because it unites us all within one common need and the potential for unprecedented cooperation and creativity between nations and communities is huge. Climate change is a greater threat than any nation could hope to be-- it is greater than our conflicts, greater than the enormous gap between wealthy and poor, greater than our prejudices against each other. We already have the technology, the science is done. We only lack the political and individual will to do whatever it takes.

The day of action on Oct 24th is meant to lift this understanding-- what 350 means, its challenge and its promise, into the collective imagination of humanity so that our creativity and resolve is strengthened and mobilized.

I designed the 350 Reasons Quilt, an open community art project, to inspire and inform people about 350. I chose a quilt because in ecology, the word “patchwork” refers to the fragmentation of whole ecosystems by roads, developments, logging, mining, etc.... Although we do not use that term for human communities, we could look at the divisions and loss of connection between religious, economic, political, cultural, racial, gender and other groups in our lives as patchworking, too. Quilts create something beautiful and useful out of fragments. It is my hope that sewing all of the pieces of the 350 Reasons quilt together creates a kind of whole that is also a prayer for connection and for collaboration as we face climate change.

The 350 Reasons Quilt is meant to have 350 squares, each of something someone loves about life on Earth. Preschoolers, farmers, grandmothers, microsoft engineers, poets, teachers, monks and teens are all participating. We have squares of bicycles, sewing machines, whooping cranes, Bach’s cello suite in D, rain, beloved grandchildren, great green macaws, breezes, oceans, and ice, to name just a few. The care that has gone into each square is beautiful in itself, and all together, all of the beloved pieces are truly moving. At the center of the quilt are three giant panels that spell out 3-5-0, the challenge we are rising to meet with our love.

The quilt will be displayed Oct 24th in Spanish and English at Dolores Park from 9- 2:30 and then at Justin Herman Plaza from 3-5. Please come walk through it and be inspired! After the 24th, I will continue gathering and sewing in squares, and begin taking the quilt around to schools and communities to talk about the atmosphere, global warming, and 350.

If you haven’t yet, please contribute a square of something you love about life! Squares should be 2X2 feet, with an extra inch all around for sewing, and they can be any form of art on fabric. When you’re done, please mail them to: America Worden, PO BOX 781, Sonoma, CA, 95476.

Please contact America for further information: speckled_lettuce@yahoo.com. Or see our blog: www.350reasons.blogspot.com.

For the Earth,

America Worden

19 days to go!

2009-10-05T11:31:00.001-07:00

Hi Everyone!

We have 19 days to go, which means two more weekends that you all can make your squares and still get them mailed in to America Worden PO BOX 781 Sonoma, CA, 95476. Get making them!!!

Here is a picture of last minute setting up for the lecture Bill McKibben gave at Sonoma Country Day school in Santa Rosa last Friday. It was so exciting and inspiring to hear about all of the amazing actions happening around the world Oct 24th. I'm feeling so grateful to be making the quilt and be part of the whole thing! Even more inspiring were the stories of why we're doing this-- glaciers at the headwaters of the world's great rivers melting, the spread of diseases born by mosquitos into places that have warmed up, and of course, the bark beetle damage here in our boreal forests. We have so much to work for!!!

You can see in the picture the big 3, the first of three center panels for the quilt, and one of the panels of everyone's squares. I'm on pins and needles (it's like my birthday for a month!) waiting for the squares to really start pouring in. Friday we got two more-- one from my aunt of the forest and water and her sewing machine, and one from Harmony at Harmony Arts who designed a piece of organic cotton fabric for the quilt (how cool is that?!) Harmony has also donated some beautiful fabric to us as have Grace in Sonoma and Violet in Santa Rosa-- we're using it all for youth at various schools and conferences coming up these last weeks to make squares. Thanks you ladies!

I also wanted to showcase the gorgeous square made by Sandy in Bolinas. This is the story of her square: " As the planet is in a state of transition caused and called by humans Global Warming, most of Earth's inhabitants are held in our hands by the choices we make on how we live here. One group of indigenous people the Kuna live on islands only a few inches above the sea level, in a country that has gone under water before. They are the caretakers of a priceless land called Kuna Yala in Panama. I try to walk lightly for their survival and all those who have always cared for the Earth and her infinite beauty."

Please send your stories in, too! We're going to make little cards to pin on your squares in Spanish and English for the park!

Can't wait to see your square!!!

America.

We're in the paper!

2009-09-30T11:11:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone!

We're mentioned in the Press Democrat, check it out, and leave a comment in support!

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090929/OPINION/909289900/1307/OPINION05?Title=CLOSE-TO-HOME-Sonoma-County-s-role-in-the-push-for-350

Thanks!

America

Here come the squares!

2009-09-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Hi friends!

Here are some of the squares, to inspire you and give you ideas for your own. Lia's square "Polar bears and a waterfall" is made by glueing fabric and metallic stars onto a piece of an old white sheet (with fabric "tacky" glue) and drawing with T-shirt pens. Adam's square "Sea meeting land" is pne of his photos transferred to canvas and glued to a black background fabric. Jon's square "Gecko for Annie" is made with fabric cut-outs glued onto a fabric background-- all of our fabric has been salvaged or donated! Will's square "Winter in Crestone" is drawn in permanent marker on an old sheet, and then painted with fabric paints. You can see more of the squares being laid out on our living room floor in the other picture. The one I'm laying down is a gorgeous, traditionally quilted piece from Sandy, in Bolinas, CA, of the plight of the Kuna people in Panama, and the orange one in front of that was mailed to us from Mississippi by Aidan, who, at three, is the third youngest artist with a square in the 350 Reasons quilt! To make your own square, please see the post "How to make a square" and let me know you're making one: speckled-lettuce@yahoo.com so I can add you to our list!

We have lots more beautiful squares. I'll post them one by one....

Thanks for your participation!

America

help support the quilt... commission a square

2009-09-24T15:57:00.001-07:00

Friends,

If you've been unable to participate in the 350 Reasons Quilt because of time or other concerns, please think about supporting the project by commissioning a square. We've been amazingly blessed by donations of fabric, but we're hoping to cover the costs of venue to display the quilt (we're still negotiating with Parks and Rec in San Francisco about where we can have the event) and some of the art supplies.

My brother and I are both artists and we're offering to create custom made squares for $50. You pick something you love about life on Earth and we'll make you an original piece of quilt art for the quilt, and send you a print. Please email me (America) at: speckled_lettuce@yahoo.com if you'd like to commission a square or you know someone who would be interested.

Thanks!

exciting news

2009-09-21T23:45:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

There have been a bunch of new moments in this project these last few days! For one thing, people have been generously donating fabric for the quilt, which is wonderful. We'll also be at Bill McKibben's talk at Sonoma Country Day school on Oct 2nd with a few of the quilt panels and materials for people to make squares or be inspired to make squares there. Tickets for that event can be purchased on line here: http://www.scds.org/podium/default.aspx?t=116556&rc=0 I'm also talking to the youth summit organizers at the Bioneers conference and it looks like the 350 Reasons Quilt is going to be part of their activities, where many people will be able to see and know about the quilt. We've also had a bunch of new possible school classes wanting to make squares. The quilt is growing!

We still need lots of help! We're no where near 350 squares. If anyone has extra sheets or fabric they don't want, please let me know! And even more importantly, if any of you can have a square-making gathering and make squares to send us, please do! Most importantly of all, please tell everyone you can think of about 350 and Oct 24th!

Thanks for all of your beautiful work!

America.

the quilt so far

2009-09-13T22:22:00.001-07:00

The quilt is growing!

We started receiving the first mailed-in squares this week, beginning with a bright orange square with waves and stars and lizards on it from a little guy in Mississippi, and we're expecting squares from the UK, Canada, maybe Papua New Guinea (!) and closer to home, from Oregon, Michigan, New York and Arizona as well as an offer from the Green Gulch Zen center and hopefully a few classrooms and quilting guilds. I finished the first of the giant center squares that spell out 350 today-- so the 3 is complete. For your inspiration, some of the things people love that we're sewing together are: pacific tree frogs, monkeys, drums, bicycles, the breeze at 6pm in Cali, Columbia, a hawk, the blue sky, sea turtles, sheep made out of real sheep.... what a beautiful landscape! It's really inspiring to see it coming together.

We still needs lots of squares!!!

It would be fantastic if anyone who's able to host a little gathering and paint, marker, quilt, silkscreen, glue, dye, stencil-- anything!-- squares and then mail us a bunch of them in one go. Even if it's you and two or three friends, we can build the rest of the quilt 3 or 4 people at a time, no problem! Old sheets have turned out to be a great resource that most people have hanging around for fabric.

Thanks a million for your participation!

PS. We're still waiting to hear back from parks and rec in San Francisco about where we can get our permit to display the quilt on Oct 24th, but I'll post it here as soon as we do!

Update

2009-08-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!
We're on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=142511070752&ref=mf
And I've sent out an email for mass circulation, so circulate away! The best way to participate, we're discovering, is to have a party or gathering and make squares together! For more info on making a square, see the post "How To Make a Square". GO NUTS! The whole point is to get as many people involved as possible-- so show your square to everyone! Tell them what you're making it for and why. And if you email us a picture, we'll put it on the blog!

What To Do With Your Finished Square

2009-08-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

So I made my square, then what?
1. Please put your name on it if you want, and name the square (for example "Tiger" or "My Grandson")

2. If you would like to attach the story of your square (why you made what you made, your hopes for the future, etc) please do that on a piece of paper attached with a stitch or paperclip so it can be removed. We'll include it in this blog with a picture of your square unless you ask us not to.

3. Bring it in person to the action on October 24th (in San Francisco, location, TBA) or mail it to: America Worden PO BOX 781, Sonoma, CA, 95476

4. PLEASE LET US KNOW you're making a square so we can plan for the whole quilt! Email Meri at: speckled_lettuce@yahoo.com

Extra Credit:
To help everyone out, if you have the time and know other people who are participating (and hopefully lots of people you know are!) you could sew (not expertly, just firmly) a few squares to each other before you bring them on the 24th or mail them in. We're going to be making panels that are 8 feet X 8 feet wide (so 8 big squares, or 16 small squares, or some combination of them) to lay out the whole quilt so that people can walk between these panels and see all 350 beloved reasons. I'm going to post diagrams very soon to illustrate, or feel free to email)

How to Make a Square

2009-08-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

Making a square is easy! In fact, it doesn't have to be quilted or sewn at all...

Subject:
Think of something you really love about life on Earth. It could be an animal, a place, a person (a child, grandchild, someone from six generations in the future), a symphony, a piece of art or architecture, a book, an iceberg, a language, a particular plant or tree... something that is unique to Earth that you want to continue into the future. Your square of the quilt will be a tribute to that beloved entity.

Size:
Create your square however you like (you could even write on an old sheet with a sharpie) on a piece of non-stretchy, easy to sew cloth (like an old sheet, a piece of painter's canvas, etc.). The dimensions of the decorated part can be two different sizes, either:

2 feet X 4 feet (that's 24 inches X 48 inches, 60.96 centimeters X 121.92 centimeters) PLEASE ADD AN *EXTRA* INCH ALL AROUND for sewing the pieces together.

OR

2 feet X 2 feet (24 X 24 inches, 60.96 X 60.96 centimeters) WITH AN *EXTRA* INCH ALL AROUND.

Please leave a little extra room (a few centimeters or an inch) on all sides of the decoration for easy sewing together.

Materials:
As noted above, the square should be made out of non-stretchy cloth. Please consider the process of piecing all of the squares together and refrain from using any fabric that is particularly fragile or fussy to sew. When it is finished, it should also be foldable.

Other than that, it's up to you what you do with the fabric! It doesn't have to be a recognizable or even beautiful image, just something that is important to you. It doesn't even have to be an image, it could be a poem or a prayer or a piece of writing for or about your subject. (It would be great for the quilt as a whole piece of art if your square is colorful, but again, its up to you.)

Here are some ideas:

* Paint on it with waterproof paint
* Draw or write on it with permanent markers
* Use dyes
* Spray paint or stencil on it
* Batik your square
* Fingerpaint!
* Make a big cut out stamp out of piece of cardboard and stamp it onto your square
* Quilt it the traditional way, by sewing pieces of fabric together to make a pattern
* Make a collage (you can attach anything you want to it as long as it's durable and not heavy, for example, no rocks, large pieces of metal, etc)
* Sew your subject onto your square in cool beads or buttons
* Have a photo printed on it
* Silkscreen your square
* Any and all creative possibilities you want to share in a comment to this post!

Next Steps:
Tell all of your friends to make a square, too!
Please see the post What To Do With Your Finished Square for next steps...

About the quilt project

2009-08-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

The 350 Reasons Quilt is a community art project created to raise awareness about keeping our atmosphere here on Earth safe for the life we love.

Last year, the world's leading climate scientists determined that the maximum carbon dioxide levels Earth's atmosphere can hold without causing huge changes in the climate and ecosystems of our planet is 350 parts per million. These are the words of James Hansen of NASA:

"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." (Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?, 2008)

Right now, Earth's atmosphere contains 390 parts per million, and we are just beginning to really see the effects of this overload in unusual seasons, huge storms, the melting of the polar ice, etc....

This December in Copenhagen our world's leaders are meeting to reach an agreement on dealing with the global climate crisis together. International cooperation and large scale legislation is the most important thing we can work toward to get carbon back down below 350. The 350 Reasons Quilt is part of a global day of action to raise awareness about the number 350, the most important number on Earth, and to create support for this limit throughout the human community. On October 24th, 2009, there will be actions all over the world (in 100 countries and counting) to move 350 into the our collective awareness (check out http://www.350.org for tons of information). We're going to be sewing together and displaying the quilt that day in San Francisco at a location that we're still determining. Please come!

Each panel of the quilt is a tribute to something that the person who made it loves about life on Earth. All sewn together, the quilt will represent 350 reasons we dedicate ourselves to keeping Earth's atmosphere below 350.

Please participate! You can participate in this project by:
-coming to sew the quilt together
-spreading the word about 350, 350.org, or the quilt
-making a panel of something you love about life (It's EASY- check out the post How to Make a Square for more details.)
-creating and registering your own action for October 24th (check out http://www.350.org/invitation)

As the panels are completed and sewn together, we'll be posting them on this site with any explanation/description/caption or dedication the panel's maker includes.

Spread the word!