Description by Karen Rapp, Stanford University

In Quilt for Grandmother's Journey, Walker uses digital technology to revisit a traditional craft practice associated with her native Southwest Virginia. In Appalachian culture a woman receives a wedding ring quilt on the night of her marriage as a symbol of her new life with her husband. The intricate and time-consuming pattern is a popular design in poor rural areas because scraps may be used instead of large sections of fabric. Though the highly detailed and repetitive practice of quilting is here performed digitally, it involves a similarly time consuming process of stitching together diverse source material in a single image. Pieced together from images of costume jewelry and coal, Walker's quilt constructs an abstract narrative about her grandmother's journey through the coalfields of Appalachia. The image marks Walker's reflection on the technological, social and cultural changes that have occurred between the time her grandmother was young and today.