From December 6 – 10, 2014, Comforters # 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, and 121 were packed into the back of my car and were transported 2,250 km from Vancouver, Canada to San Diego, California. On December 10, they were delivered to a children’s shelter. For the safety of those children, I will not report on the location of the shelter or the circumstances that brought the children there. Suffice to say, the children have a cozy, temporary home in San Diego, with a set of new colourful comforters. This seems to be an appropriate place for this batch of blankets, because a number of them were made out of children’s fabrics that had long ago been donated to Comforter Art Action. The fabric had been languishing in the stash for many years, then this summer, Karen DeFreitas Gomes took squares and yardage home and made them into beautiful kids blankets of varying sizes (#119, 120, 121). This batch of blankets also included a beautiful quilt from Kriss Boggild (#112), and a lush patchwork of velvets and satins (#113). The heavy patchwork makes a perfect cover for the oversized (and worn) comfy couch in the shelter.
These photos were taken by Pam Calore (San Diego). They show us with the staff of the shelter and with artist Angel Chen (Taiwan) who visited the site with us. Following on from Pam Calore’s visit to Vancouver in July, 2013, this was a trip for us to learn more about the displacement of people across borders and walls.
Lois Klassen