Block Number

#119

Creator

glyn coyote

Creator Location

Florida, USA

Date

2023

Rights

The Euphoria Quilt

Identifier

TEQ-2024-02-73

Transcription

“Hello Hello!

Grateful for your patience & genderosity with time - I fear the steryotype of queer people being late to things has rung true for me again. Also feeling deep gratitude for this project and the time & energy you are investing in it. What a gift to be sending this to the first place I felt truly created a home for myself. I hope to come home to the southwest soon, but until then this block will be making the journey for me and find community in the quilt.

 Regarding my block: whenever I sew, by machine or hand, I keep my scraps no matter how small. Bits of thread, ripped seams from reworked pieces or mistakes, strange small scraps sent to me by our mutual friend April of secret admirer, the bottons of shirts my girlfriend crops for herself. I've seen various approaches to using up this kind of scrap, and from these put together my own. Not unlike myself, this wonky block (apologies if the measurements & thickness give you trouble) is both an exploration & experiment. Will it hold together, will it become something else will it be difficult to work with, will it play well with others how will it weather the test of time?

This block is also necessarily a cry of frustration & determination — it is about "being prom" and navigating the superimposed settler colonial imperial country we know as the United States while being queer. Part of queer 2 magic and gender euphoria to me, is that we make so much ourselves, perhaps this is an element of what brings so many of us to our creative practices, especially those arts which have been deemed crafts. But we define our identities, lives, love, utopias, futures, and communities together outside/ within / despite the examples we've been given. We piece together something greater than the sum of its parts by starting elsewhere from the cis-hetero-normative structure.

This block is a testament to our ability, together, to take even the smallest scraps, the odds & ends, the extra, the "unwanted": the different, and make something wholly and truly our own. Expansive, questioning, experimental, joyous, challenging, and completely and totally ours.

Thank you for reading this.

With my continued thanks, & with love.

glyn coyote

@endless.decay”