The Rev. Carol Burnside describes her process and the healing behind it in front of her quilt of the Right. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton at a showing of the African American Quilters of Baltimore, September 2022

by Elizabeth Brignac

Becoming Beloved Community One Stitch at a Time

Janet Waters, long-time former president of the African American Quilters of Baltimore (AAQB) and a member of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, where the group meets, cannot quilt anymore because of arthritis in her hands. Nevertheless, she considers being a quilter part of her identity. “Whenever I sit down and do quilting or any kind of sewing, I feel this sense of women from the past – from the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s — being with me in the room,” Walters says. 

Waters values the power of quilting to bring generations together and to empower quilters to help others. “Fabric and quilting and making things has always been the vehicle for women who didn’t have any other way to take care of their families — and also do protest,” she says. Quilters wove symbols into slave quilts, including codes helping escaping slaves navigate the Underground Railroad. They sewed what they called well quilts — quilts filled with healing herbs, used to heal the sick. For centuries, quilters have used their art to help and heal their loved ones and communities.

Today, the AAQB continues to use quilting to care for their community. They auction quilts to raise money to help Black students attend the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and donate quilts to hospitals treating patients with sickle cell disease. Waters considers the AAQB’s work to be very much a part of St. Bartholomew’s community outreach work. “Even though the church wasn’t directly involved, I really feel that their presence in the church, helping – it all ties together,” she says.

The relationship between St. Bartholomew’s and the AAQB is part of a larger pattern of mutual support between textile artists and the church in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. Several of these artists, including Waters, have offered their work to the church in an effort to heal their congregations and communities of racism and its virulent effects.

Change Through Inclusion

St. Bartholomew’s founders included slaveowners, and the church has sought a better way forward by emphasizing racial inclusion across the board in its ministries. The clothing the clergy wear in worship and the altar linens reflect this emphasis.

During times when the liturgical color is green, the clergy wear stoles made of kente cloth, a handwoven cloth made in Ghana using traditional patterns and bright colors. The stoles incorporate Adrinka symbols – West African symbols representing central concepts and values in their communities.

In 2018, when the church decided to replace its formal, white vestments, they used the Adrinka symbols from the kente cloth stoles as inspiration for the new design. Calling on her experience as a textile artist, Waters worked with others from the church and the team at Trevor W. Floyd & Co. to design white vestments with stoles incorporating Adrinka symbols with meanings important to the St. Bartholomew’s congregation. The first stole, for example, incorporates a Nyame Dua (tree of God) symbol, representing the altar and the presence of God, and Nyame Nti (by God’s grace) representing faith and trust.

Including West African and African American symbols in their vestments and explaining them in their church bulletin is one way St. Bartholomew’s is building the traditions of its Black members into its systems and structures.

Nyame Dua (tree of God) | This symbol represents the altar and is a symbol of God’s presence and protection. The Nyame Dua is a sacred  spot where rituals are performed. Erected in front of the house or compound, it is crafted from a tree that has been cut where three or more branches come together. This stake holds an earthenware vessel filled with water and herbs or other symbolic materials for purification and blessing rituals.

Nyame Nti (by God’s grace) | A symbol of faith and trust, this stalk depicts the staff of life in many cultures. It symbolizes to the Akan that food is a basis of life and that they could not survive if not for the food that God has placed here on Earth for their nourishment.

Remembering Their Names

The Rev. Monique Ellison, rector of St. Mathias’ and Church of the Messiah in Baltimore, also wears clerical vestments designed to promote racial reconciliation. Ellison owns two overlay stoles made by her friend, the Rev. Nicolette (“Nic”) Papanek on which Papenek has inscribed the names of people of color who have been killed by police officers. One stole commemorates men killed in these conflicts. One commemorates women and transgender people. Papenek is currently working on a third stole in this series that commemorates teenagers and children. 

“These stoles are designed to be worn on top of your chasuble,” says Papenek. “These are for display because they are a visual reminder of what we should be doing to help God’s children.” Papenek, an avid quilter, has researched the names of as many people of color killed by police officers as she can find for each stole. She has handwritten each of their names on the stoles in indelible ink. “Writing is an act that involves the whole body, the hands and the mind…And it was also honoring the people to actually write their names. She prays as she writes the names, saying simply, “Oh, dear God, dear God.’”

“I pray with these stoles by wearing them, not only in gratitude to Nicolette, but to the memory of the people who were killed and what it is that’s happening that makes it so that it was so easy for their lives to be cut short like that,” says Ellison. “There are some times I wonder , which one of these names hurts the most? And there isn’t one. They’re all terrible, terrible stories of carelessness and callousness.”

Ellison usually wears the stoles in small groups, hoping they will inspire conversation about the combined problems of racism and gun violence. “It brings [the problem] to mind for somebody who will not think about it otherwise,” she says. “It’s going to take more than names on stoles to make us have the political and spiritual will to actually do something that makes a difference, but it’ll help to not forget.”

Calling for Justice

The Rev. Carol Burnside, a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and a member of AAQB, has used quilting both to call for systemic racial change and to celebrate the contributions of Black Episcopalians to the church.

One ongoing project on which Burnside has been working for over seven years, is called The Race Against Race. (The name is a play on words. A race is a part of a sewing machine.) Long concerned about the violence against people of color by police officers, when Burnside read about the death of Sandra Bland in police custody in 2015, she felt overwhelmed with anger and helplessness. Burnside recounts her experience alone in her apartment: “I said, ‘God! I’m a priest!… Shouldn’t I be doing something?!’ And God said, ‘Make quilts.’”

Burnside describes the process of designing this series of quilts as “receiving” ideas. “I can’t make them fast enough. I keep making them and adding to the collection,” says Burnside. Her designs require viewers to interpret them. “These quilts are something that people have to wrestle with a little…There’s a message, but they have to work at it a little bit to get it,” says Burnside.

The Race Against Race motivates people to advocate for systemic change. Since White people are the ones with the responsibility to tear down systemic racism, Burnside’s primary audience is White viewers. “My quilts are messages about systemic racism and White privilege from a White person to White people,” says Burnside, though Black viewers have appreciated the series as well. Soon, Burnside hopes to take The Race Against Race on the road, doing quilt shows and talks at the many churches across the country that have shown interest in her work.

Burnside has also created a series of quilts she calls Baltimore African American Episcopal Church Firsts depicting the first Black people with connections to historic St. James’ Episcopal Church in Baltimore to hold various offices in The Episcopal Church. This project includes a quilt depicting Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton, the first African American Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, who was elected in a vote held at St. James’; a quilt depicting Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who was rector of St. James’ for twelve years; and four other quilts, including one depicting St. James’ Church itself.

For each quilt, Burnside researched the subject’s interests and included backgrounds that reflected these themes. Bishop Sutton, for example, has said he wants to be known as “Maryland’s first green bishop” because of his environmental focus, so his quilt’s background emphasizes the color green along with Maryland-focused ecological themes. “I just love finding those little nuggets and adding that much more meaning to each piece,” says Burnside.

A sample of the Rev. Carol Burnside’s quilt of the Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry

The Rev. Carol Burnside’s quilt of historic St. James’, Lafayette Square

Closeup of the Rev. Carol Burnside’s quilt of the Right Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton

St. James’ Episcopal Church will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2024. This series will be displayed as part of the celebration. “It’s very important to a church social structure when you find a way that art can also be exhibited in a reflection of who’s at your parish,” says the Rev. Richard Meadows, rector of both St. James’ and St. Michael and All Angels in Baltimore. “Quilting is a way of interweaving and connecting with not only culture but history…who we were, who we are, and who we will become.”