A City in Flames

I usually write a dedication for my wall art pieces. I could not find one for A City In Flames. BUT I did find an explanation for a smaller piece I donated to the SAQA auction in 2021 that used pieces from the larger quilt. Part of that follows:

“It has been a topsy turvy, upside-down year – actually for sure the last couple of years…and actually much longer for many. (AND it is still super chaotic and topsy-turvy in 2025… ☹)  A City in Flames quilt was created about all the recent racial strife within the United States. It is totally understandable, but heartbreaking.”

As I created the work, I also thought about times in the history of our country that are not our proudest moments but need to be recognized as such and faced. Being in denial about the fact that many things have NOT been fair, kind, correct, helpful – any positive word you would like to use…there have been tons of times of total injustice. If we deny those times, it is like families who deny things like alcoholism and pretend all is well. It is like pretending there isn’t an elephant in the living room. Well, there is a GIGANTIC Elephant in the middle of the U.S. “living room”. I was especially reminded of Tulsa, OK in 1921, when a whole section of their city was burned to the ground.

I grew up in the 1960’s – 70’s, and I remember the strife of those times. A lot of fires were set and areas destroyed from the anguish of those being treated unfairly. Throughout the creation of this piece, I also thought of the Japanese internment camps such as Manzanar, and the harm done to so many families because of that military action. OR of course the many broken treaties and broken promises to the native peoples of our country – too many to speak of.

I wanted to include a song lyric or a poem that would sum up the feelings of these representative people, but I could not find anything except some words that may give these people hope: “…And this is the way that will bring us once more into that society which we think of as the brotherhood of man. This will be that day when white people, colored people, whether they are brown or whether they are yellow or whether they are black, will join together and stretch out with their arms and be able to cry out: “Free at last! Free at last! Great God Almighty, we are free at last!” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We have the capacity to be a GREAT nation, but we will all have to come through the storm denial, pretense, ignorance and prejudice and help each other to get the that better nation we can be.