The long arms of Martha’s Vineyard seem to reach across the globe. In the case of PeaceQuilts, those arms extend to Lilavois – on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The PeaceQuilts project originated when Jeanne Staples, of Edgartown, traveled to Haiti in 2006 to set up a women’s cooperative for making quilts. She had discovered exceptional talent in the handiwork of the Haitian women, after friends involved in another project, Fish Farm for Haiti, brought back to the Vineyard intricately embroidered Haitian linens such as napkins and tablecloths. An artist herself, Jeanne was struck by the colors, deep imagery, and symbolism.
“Few people use such luxuries on their everyday tables,” notes Jeanne, who says she thought, “There must be some way to redirect this remarkable talent.I’ll bet these folks would make terrific quilters.” Jeanne’s own family heritage goes back to the tiny fishing village of Pubnico in Nova Scotia, where she watched everyone quilt.
The quilting idea inspired a mission that has gained momentum during the past three years – and grown beyond the Vineyard and Haiti. Jeanne, who is the project’s director, has traveled to Haiti, at her own expense, more than ten times, bringing others with her each time. Initially, on that first trip in 2006, they created a simple workshop to teach the basics. The Haitian women, whose vocational schooling had already introduced them to sewing, were “incredibly excited,” Jeanne remembers. The goal was to teach the protocol to design a quilt square. The women then learned how to take symbols represented in the rich Haitian culture and imagery – plants, fish, other animals – and trace them onto fabric.
Step by step, the squares develop with a thin layer of stuffing, a back cloth, and hand stitching. Sometimes an individual quilter produces the entire quilt; more commonly, several women work together as a team to produce what are called album quilts. And sometimes the quilt pieces are connected and given finishing touches by enterprising women at the Oak Bluffs Senior Center who enjoy the work and the collaboration with the Haitians. Pictures of the originators and finishers are shared from country to country, so each can see and appreciate the others more fully. These women are engaged in a very personal international partnership aptly named PeaceQuilts.
In Haiti, Jeanne formed another sort of partnership – with the nuns of Daughters of Mary, Queen Immaculate, who run ten schools there. The nuns had already established training centers for women, Jeanne says, and were already teaching some sewing classes. “That gave us the infrastructure we needed; we had a place to work and local representatives to help us,” Jeanne says. By 2010, there will be seven centers teaching quilting. The one in Lilavois is the first to operate as a self-sufficient co-op, and it has eight members. Jeanne says some of the first quilters in the program serve as the mentors to others learning to quilt. One of the project’s primary goals is to provide a means for independence for people in a country whose poverty is deep and widespread.
The fundamentals of the skills of quilting have been refined, and the quilters now can produce pieces of artistic value. They’ve sold more than a hundred quilts since 2006 through an online store at the website www.haitipeacequilts.org as well as through various fundraisers and public awareness efforts. About 60 percent of funds, from sales and contributions, go directly to the Haitian women – to pay commissions on quilts that sell and to pay base salaries – about $4 a day based on working full time, five days per week. The rate, Jeanne stresses, is higher than the average wage paid to factory workers. The remaining 40 percent goes to development of the project, including buying materials and equipment such as sewing machines.
The quilts are sold for prices that range from $65 for a single eighteen-inch square, to $1,000 for a five-foot-square tree-of-life quilt that sold recently, to a $4,500 quilt that’s part of a collection currently at the Bennington Museum in Vermont. Jeanne explains that the pricing is determined by the “Haitian-ness” of the product as well as the artistic value. A quilt colorfully designed but with no particular Haitian symbolism or imagery sells for less.
Excitement about the project spread into the Vineyard schools last year. Parent Beth Treischmann, Tisbury School teacher Pam Herman, and high school teacher Corinne Kurtz realized the educational value of the quilts. They presented a workshop about the culture of Haiti and the development of the quilting project to the children at the Tisbury School. Tying together proverbs and Haitian stories with the symbolism in the quilts, the students became so motivated that they wanted to do something to help support the quilt project.
Soon collection jars sat on every teacher’s desk at the Tisbury School. The children learned math skills as they estimated the number of raffle tickets needed to collect a certain amount of money. They learned the business of conducting the drive. In less than a month, they had raised $1,100, which was more than their goal. The children decided to donate half to the PeaceQuilts project and half to an orphanage in Africa. Here was civic and character education at its best. Through the website, PeaceQuilts also offers this “win-win raffle program” to other schools and youth groups.
The school children on the Vineyard haven’t been the only ones affected by the project. Photographer Harvey John Beth, who lives in Oak Bluffs, tells of his trip to Haiti: He says both the school and the Americans’ lodging were walled in, and visitors were not normally allowed to leave the complex due to the persistent threat of crime. But one day they went into Port-au-Prince to visit the homes of some of the quilting women. Intergenerational families shared one-room homes. Some of the children were unable to attend school, because their families could not afford the cost for a uniform, books, and school supplies, which currently totals $165. After that education, West Tisbury’s Karen Flynn became a representative for a group called Haitian Outreach, and serves as the liaison between Haitian children and Vineyard folks who wish to support their education. To date, some thirty-five Vineyard residents sponsor Haitian children.
While the outreach to Haiti has branched out from quilting, PeaceQuilts has expanded as well. Ever ambitious, Jeanne has sought venues on- and off- Island to display some of the one-of-a-kind Haitian quilts. At Edgartown’s Federated Church, for example, her Haitian quilt displays in 2008 and 2009 attracted many to the Celebrity Waiters spaghetti suppers, where a quilt was raffled off each time.
The project’s quilting coordinator, Maureen Matthews McClintock, frequents the Vineyard and lives in Vermont – home also of the Bennington Museum, which became interested in PeaceQuilts as part of its study on how the imagery of Haiti may be connected to Vermont. On September 11, 2009, the museum opened the show Patience to Raise the Sun: Art Quilts from Haiti. Jeanne and a small entourage of enthusiastic Vineyard folks attended. Visiting from Haiti for the opening were Sister Angela Belizaire of the Daughters of Mary, Queen Immaculate and Nadège Florian, one of the Haitian quilters who’s been part of the project from the start and is now the manager of the co-op in Lilavois. Along with quilts and the photography by Harvey John Beth, the exhibit includes other artifacts from the project such as a sample of a charcoal-heated iron and a brazier with tongs to light the iron when it’s needed by the quilters. Vineyard filmmaker Taylor Toole produced a five-minute DVD with interviews and background information to run during the exhibition.
In July, Marie Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, Haiti’s minister of women’s affairs, visited Martha’s Vineyard and spoke at the Oak Bluffs Library. When asked why she came, she explained, “We are both islands. You have helped us, and over all the years you have never tried to take advantage of us.” Her goal, to set up ten women’s development centers throughout her country to empower women to create self-sustaining business ventures, is comparable with that of the PeaceQuilts project.
Martha’s Vineyard again and again proves itself to be a place of compassion, a place where ordinary folks care about their world – their local world, their national world, and their global world. Jeanne Staples responded to her heart in 2006 and, as a result, her simple idea of teaching Haitian women to quilt has grown to influence Vineyard schoolchildren, senior citizens, church-goers, and more. PeaceQuilts now reaches all the way to Vermont – and beyond. What’s next? “A traveling quilt show,” Jeanne replies with a smile. The Bennington Museum has arranged for the exhibit to travel to approximately ten museums across the United States.
