Block Number

#104

Creator

Eric Guy

Creator Location

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Date

2023

Rights

The Euphoria Quilt

Identifier

TEQ-2024-02-61

Transcription

“Dear Eliot,

This quilt block is a love letter to the desert landscape of my youth — the impossibly - blue sky, the perpetually distant mountains, and of course the delightful Queer cacti.

I had already been in a period of reflection on my own Queerness, my own Gender Euphoria, when I began to consider how I might contribute to this project…

I always came back to those mountains, so strong, so poise, seemingly gentle, yet harsh. I thought about the space in-between, where the sky touches the earth. This block is meant to be reversible — purple mountains under a blue sky, or dusky blue mountains under a brilliant sunset. I thought about how as humans we look for reflections of ourselves, needlessly gendering nature which has none, has all.

Even the “Masculine” saguaro (represented her) with its phallic impression is actually the central Mother to an entire ecosystem.

Lots of Love, Eric M. Guy

P.S Fabric is from an old cotton dress shirt I salvaged. All dyed with indigo, over dyed with cochineal for purple and overdyed with homegrown marigolds + hemp for green.

Much thanks to Eliza Fernands’s Queer Quilting studio here in Chicago. They provided the space, guidance and insight to jumpstart my quilting journey. Plus this delightful floral print was waiting for me in their scrap pile!! Quilt block used was a queering ;) of Delcetable Mountains.”