You've heard of survivors' guilt - here we've got survivors' QUILTS. (Bad pun, I know -- but true.)
We've been talking a bit lately about art therapy, and how combat veterans with PTSD use it successfully to tap into, and work through, some of the pain they feel inside. The photos here, by Mike Kane, at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, are from a story published on March 19 about how the inpatient PTSD program at the VA hospital in Seattle has a "wall" of quilt squares, made by combat veterans, and encouraged by a nurse, Betsy Shapiro (she's at right, above), now retired, who gave deeply hurting veterans 6x6" cotton squares, on which to draw something or paint something that related to their experience: something they could leave behind, to let others know about them and what they had gone through.
Initially, there was moaning and groaning, and reluctance to comply. But shortly thereafter, everyone produced something, and the results were really pretty impressive. The veterans also gave input into how they wanted the resultant squares displayed -- not set in pretty frames, like squares in a regular patchwork quilt might be, but together, side-by-side, touching. The article, by Mike Barber, is called "Veterans tell stories in patchwork of memories," and it's linked here.
In an earlier article, from the Honolulu Advertiser from October 2, 2007, linked here, Glenn Reys, an Air Force vet in Honolulu worked through his recovery from drugs and alcohol by immersing himself in making a Hawaiian quilt, symbolic of his homeland, but also incorporating patriotric U.S. symbols. He found himself devoted to the practice, and able to quilt for hours at a time. "This kept me busy," Reys said. "When I do sewing like this, I can sew for like six or eight hours, and it's no problem. That's what I do in my continuing recovery."
In one of the best articles I've read about a Vietnam vet, Cecil Ison, struggling with PTSD, the author, Kathy Dobie, talks about visiting his home in Kentucky and watching his wife, Bet, a quilter, work on a quilt with Vietnam themes. Cecil and his two brothers all served in combat in Vietnam, and each responded in a different way. Cecil's wife, Bet, attempted to capture her view of what they suffered in the quilt, turning an abstract -- feelings about the war, and the isolation it produced -- into something very concrete -- the quilt. She says that the quilt is too painful for Cecil to address directly, but through it, she is able to give vent to some of her feelings, about what she has watched her husband and his brothers go through. Kathy Dobie writes:
[Cecil's wife, Bet, and I are spending time one afternoon.] We’re talking upstairs in the sewing room while she works on her Vietnam quilt. The room is stuffed with fabric: tweeds, cottons, velvets, hundreds of men’s ties. Bet sews at a small table by the window. She listens to oral histories of Vietnam 
veterans as she works. On the left side of the quilt is an army-green map of Vietnam, showing the three cities where James, Cecil, and Arnold served. The rest of the quilt is blue, and three male figures float there, separated from one another and bearing labels: anger, despair, and guilt. The quilt reads: "my husband and his brothers came home from vietnam…three islands in an ocean of silence." James is the Angry one, Cecil the figure of Despair, and Arnold is Guilt.
(This is the quilt in question, pictured to the right. From top to bottom, you can see "Anger," "Despair," and "Guilt," and "Vietnam" is written lengthwise, on the left.) Quilt copyright Bet Ison.
Below is another quilt with Vietnam imagery by Bet Ison. Both quilts are copyright Bet Ison, and property of the author. Photos are shared with Bet Ison's permission.
(The article by Kathy Dobie article in GQ, is called "The Long Shadow of War," and we blogged about it earlier, here. Dobie is also the author of the excellent article in the Nation, recently, called "Denial in the Corps" -- about Marines and the stigma of mental health issues, including PTSD, which we've also blogged about, here.)
Quilting is a uniquely American tradition. Not that other countries haven't had their own versions of it, but it's uniquely tied up in the "fabric," as it were, of American history. There are so many examples, from crazy quilts made of just scraps of silk, satin and wool garments, patched together on wagon trains as Americans headed West, to quilts made from flour sacks by pioneer women, to Civil War era "album quilts," to today's photo transfer quilts. Quilts are often about "making do" with just the materials available, and there's something therapeutic about the needlework involved. In 1837, American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in The Scarlet Letter, "Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle." Well, by the 1970s, even he-men like football great Rosey Grier had picked up the needle, though not necessarily to quilt (he favored needlepoint instead). Quilting is an unusual 3D art form that combines texture (the fabric, and the stitchwork) with color and design, and has a long and storied American history, besides. It's interesting that combat veterans and their loved ones would find an outlet for some of their feelings in quilting. Whether it's a square, a bed quilt, or a wall hanging, quilting allows for freedom of expression, and a form of "art therapy" that may just help those who are hurting to focus and transform their experience into something physical that they can share with others.
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Editor's Note: If you want to continue this conversation about quilting and paying homage to a combat experience, your own or someone else's, email tributequilts AT gmail DOT com.
