AIDS Memorial Quilt Panel
This is the story of a
12 foot square panel made for the Aids Memorial
Quilt
on behalf of the employees of United Airlines
See Caryl's story below.
In 1996, the United Airlines Foundation sponsored
the traveling display of a 12' x 12' quilt
panel hand-crafted by Caryl Bryer Fallert,
who was, at that time, a flight attendant
for United Airlines. The quilt was made
in memory of employees, customers and loved
ones lost to this terrible disease.
This panel toured the world, making 26 stops
in 18 cities in 3 countries, and was viewed
by hundred of United Airlines employees. See
full image of complete quilt. |
We Remember
For a large image of this panel,
go to: http://www.aidsquilt.org/Newsite/searchquilt.htm
type in "United
Airlines" the panel
is #04668 in the AIDS quilt registery
you can try going directly to the
image by clicking here
http://167.160.195.60/images/panels/04668.JPG
To go to the NAMES
main site http://www.aidsquilt.org
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Caryl's Story
We Remember |
In May of 1996 I was asked to make a panel
for the Aids Memorial Quilt on behalf of United
Airlines. It needed to be 12 feet square,
and it needed to be finished in three weeks.
I spent several days designing the 12 foot
square and getting approval for the final
design.
The design has a six foot center panel with
a globe and a bird to represent the airline,
and it's worldwide employees. A red candle
symbolizes remembering those we have lost.
In the upper left corner of the quilt are
the words "we remember", and in
the lower right, "United Airlines."
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In two concentric circles, surrounding the
globe are the words "we remember"
written in 15 different languages.
The last week of May I constructed and quilted
the six foot square, center panel. There were
still six more three foot by six foot panels
with the circles of words, to make by the
June 5 deadline. Help arrived the first week
of June. On June 3rd and 4th, Bill
Lotheridge, and Scott Nelson came to my studio
to lend a hand. |
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Working on the final six panels, then assembling
the finished quilt was an adventure for all
of us. Bill and Scott quickly learned all
the parts of quilting that don't require sewing
skills, On June 3, they measured and cut all
the panels, then laid out and fused all the
words to the background fabric. |
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The next day, Bill and Scott
measured and cut the backing panels, and
batting, and pin basted the panels together.
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little sewing on the back panels. |
On June 3rd, I spent the whole
day at the sewing machine stitching the letters
to the background. |
The next day, I quilted all
six panels between 6 am and 10 p.m., after
which Bill and Scott removed all the pins.
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Late that night we began stitching
together the large pieces of the quilt. As
the quilt grew to 12 feet square, it got heavy
and awkward. Eventually it took all three
of us to haul it through the sewing machine.
At 3:30 am on the morning of June 5, the quilt
was complete. |
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Later that morning, Bill began
a six week journey to take the quilt to as
many United cities as possible so that employees
could attach red ribbons to remember those
they knew and loved who had died of aids.
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A memory book traveled with
the quilt to record our memories of those
we lost.
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In October of 1996, all the
panels of the quilt were displayed in Washington
D.C. on the mall between the Capitol and
the Washington Monument. On Saturday, October
12, I arrived at the Capitol Building in
Washington D.C. just in time to watch the
last of the panels being unfolded on the
mall. The unfolding ceremony requires hundreds
of volunteers, dressed in white, and lasts
about an hour and a half.
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Click here
to see another picture of one of the 12
foot squares. A detail of can be found
below.
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The quilt is made up of three
by six foot panels with the names and memories
of individuals who have died of aids. These
are sewn together to form twelve foot squares.
Each of the twelve foot squares is surrounded
by a three inch white canvas border with
grommets. The twelve foot panels are lashed
together to form twenty-four foot squares.
The twenty-four foot squares are laid out
on the ground with black canvas tarpaulins
about six feet wide,
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| At sunrise, a twenty-four foot
panel, folded with it's corners to the center,
is placed diagonally in the center of each
twenty-four foot square of grass.The twenty-four
foot square panels were unfolded in rows.
Each panel was unfolded by eight volunteers.
As each panel was unfolded, the volunteers
moved to their next assigned panel and surrounded
it, holding hands. |
| When all were in position from one end of
the mall to the other, a signal was given,
and all the panels in a single row were unfolded
at the same time. |
First four people reached to the center
and folded back the inside set of corners.
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The next four people then went to the center
again, and folded back the outside set of
corners.
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The unfolded twenty-four foot panel was
then lifted about the heads of the group of
eight people, who rotated it by walking clockwise,
until the panel could be placed exactly in
the square between the black canvas walkways. |
| After the quilt left my hands in June, it
traveled to twenty six different cities in
the United States and Europe. At each city,
United employees were offered to opportunity
to sew a red ribbon on the quilt to remember
a fellow employee that had lost to aids. |
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During the unfolding,
thousands of people stood quietly around the
periphery. At the end of the unfolding,
the thousands of visitors were invited to
walk among the quilt panels.
The walkways were often as crowded as the
aisles at the AQS show in Paducah, KY, but
there was a quiet kindness and respect among
the visitors. The crowd were as diverse a
group as you could ever expect to find in
one place. White, African American, Asian,
Latino, rich and poor, gay and straight, able
bodied and disabled. Some individuals wept
silently by the panels of those they had loved.
It was not unusual to see a stranger approach
and lay a comforting arm on their shoulder.
No one is untouched. |
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From the beginning
of the unfolding, until the panels
were refolded at sunset, the names
of those who have dies were read
over the public address system
by a series of readers, including
nationally known political and
spiritual leaders, corporate officers,
health professionals, artists,
writers, and family members of
those who have died.
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The squares filled the entire Washington
Mall (the space between the Capitol building
and the Washington Monument) Our panel, was
in the center of the very first row, by the
Capitol reflection pool, and the stage.
I chatted for a while with the volunteer who
was assigned the first three-hour shift in
the area of our quilt panel.....a United,
customer service representative. As we talked
he said, " Someday, my daughter will
probably have a panel in this quilt. She was
a nurse" he explained, "and she
was stuck by a contaminated needle" I
asked him about the promising new drugs we
have heard about.. "Yes" he said,
"She is taking one of them now. It costs
her $995.00 each month, just for the drug.
It is not covered by health insurance, and
the hospial for which she worked bears no
financial liability for the illness she contracted
working for them. She gets a disability insurance
check for $235.00 each month, and that is
her only income." |
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| Another United volunteer, one of my fellow
flight attendants, wrote the name of one of
her friends on a red ribbon and attached it
to the quilt. It was a name I knew well. At
six in the morning on Memorial Day, 1978,
I was setting up the galley on a 737, when
I heard a bright, eager voice, and I looked
up to see a blond, young man in a brand new
uniform. "Hi" he said, "I'm
Doug, and this is my first flight" |
| There were also hundreds of panels for nurses
and doctors, priests and ministers, mothers
and grandmothers, fathers and grandfathers,
and little children. |
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The panels of the well known, like Arthur
Ashe, were sewn to panels of those known only
to a loving family or a close circle of friends.
Some of the panels contained traditional patchwork
patterns. A few were even hand quilted. |
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| The vast majority
were not quilted at all. Many were
made from clothing, ties, and other
cloth objects that belonged to the
victims. More than half included
photographs of the victims and their
families. |
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Some were exquisitely embroidered, painted,
printed, or drawn, while others had only the
crudely written name of the victim, executed
in the coarsest of materials. None lacked
emotional impact.
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Volunteers served three hour shifts, watching
over the quilt panels in a particular area.
This was not the kind of archival, white gloved
guarding that usually happens at quilt shows.
The quilts, after all, are laid directly on
the grass. Many relatives sat for a time or
laid flowers on the panels of their loved
ones. |
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I walked nonstop for four
hours, and realized I wasn't even half way
to the Washington Monument. Lunch had been
arranged a few blocks away, but I decided
to skip so that I could see more of the
quilt. I walked faster, and began going
up only every-other row, trying to see each
twenty-four foot panel from one side. After
another hour of walking, I had reached what
I thought at the time was the half way point.
I began to feel light headed from no food
or water, and hoping to find a soda, headed
to the edge of the central mall where some
tents were set up.
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Beyond the tents were grassy tree-lined
parks on both sides of the mall. I soon discovered
that these too were filled with sections of
the quilt. Stretching for two blocks
in front of one tent were people waiting patiently
in line. I wondered why so many people were
waiting in this one line. |
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Then I saw a woman showing a three by six
foot quilt panel to the couple in front of
her, holding it up like any quilter at a quilt
guild meeting. Suddenly, I realized that each
person in line was carrying a plastic or cloth
bag, and inside each one was a new quilt panel,
waiting to be checked in and cataloged for
inclusion in the quilt. Further along the
line were a group of five young men, each
carrying a bag. They were taking turns showing
their panels and having their pictures taken.
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| I walked beside the quilt panels under the
trees for a while, then returned to the mall.
Knowing I would have to leave in the late
afternoon, I walked faster and faster, and
began skipping several rows at a time. After
seven straight hours of walking, I finally
reached the Washington Monument, having actually
seen only a fraction of the entire quilt.
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As I walked along the sidewalk back to the
Capitol, I saw volunteers filling the remaining
spaces under the trees with the new panels
that had been checked in that day, and the
names continued to be read aloud for all the
hear. |
| They say the quilt now fills
more that twenty-four football fields, and
is the largest piece of art in history. This
may have been the last time it would be physically
possible to display all of the quilt panels
in a single setting, but the leaders of the
Names Project have vowed to continue spreading
the quilt on the mall in Washington until
a cure is found, and is available to all who
need it. |
Click here to see the
AIDS MEMORIAL
QUILT WEBSITE
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