This episode shares stories of community and creativity and how the two came together to create The Healing Blanket Project, one thoughtful and colourful stitch at a time.

The story begins with the Healing Blanket post pandemic as she fledges her nest and moves into Ronald MacDonald’s new house in Winnipeg.

Listen in on the podcast or read up on the blog to discover what happens when a delicate, white tulip grows 2 meters tall and what supportive magic happens at the crossroads where action and presence meet.

The meditation continues the healing theme. Listen in for 11 minutes of self care where we invite softness and ease in on the breath. Stay tuned as we are reminded, to pause, to accept the gift of stillness and to be open to receiving all the support the universe offers, wherever we are.
Find the meditation at 15:30 in the recording.

The Healing Blanket gets started in the Fall of 2015 at my Studio at the corner of Adelaide and McDermot in Winnipeg’s Historic Exchange District. That’s me making some of the very first stitches.
Photo credit : Simeon Rusnak, 2015

THE NEW/OLD FASHIONED QUILTING BEE with Amanda Onchulenko

The Healing Blanket Project has been installed on the stairwell overlooking the play structure at the new Ronald MacDonald House in Winnipeg. It’s been 7 years in the making. I couldn’t have foreseen a more fitting home for it when we began. I am so grateful it has found its way to this public space.

I have to admit it has taken me some time to collate the elements of this community art project in a written form for public consumption. It might be the responsibility I feel in the sharing that coincides with the fear I might miss something important, or that somehow my words won’t adequately convey my gratitude for all whose time energy and intentions are represented. I hope you’ll read on to learn of its story.

Participants were invited to add a stitch in time in hour of someone they love or have loved.

The idea for The Healing Blanket Project evolved out of a desire to support some friends going through difficult circumstances. Its inception coincided with the Arts and Cultural Days events when the program first began in Winnipeg in 2015. As a practicing artist I am aware that my creative signature is everywhere. Not everyone has an opportunity to leave a physical creative mark, however simple, in the physical world. For this reason I decided I wanted to offer and facilitate such a space for others.

I found inspiration in family and friends to combine the concept of a traditional Quilting Bee with my painting practice to initiate a community art quilting project.

The project featured a version of one of my paintings, but this was not to be my quilt. It would belong to all who participated in its construction and to those who would eventually benefit from its intention. Guests were invited into my studio practice, to participate in the creative process with the simple invitation to leave a physical stitch in time, with, or in honour of someone they currently love or had once loved.

WAVE weekends in June and September often featured the Healing Blanket. The event even brought movies stars to The Interlake to participate. Brenda Gorlick and Alvina August were cast in the Hallmark movie “Love and Design”, and added some of both to the quilt top in the summer of 2018.

THE HEALING BLANKET had lots of room for contributor’s stitches during the 7 years the project was installed at my studio during exhibitions and events. There was no expectation or tutorial beyond the invitation to participate. I assisted with the threading of needles or getting someone started on occasion. All participants worked independently after the request to be intentionally present with their friend, partner, family member or fellow contributor. The invitation allowed them to engage with their thoughts and the creative process in the present moment.

A view of visitors at work on the Healing Blanket through the garden at Ponemah. The weather was not always so kind.

SPONSORSHIP AND SUPPORT:

My gratitude extends to my husband and Levene, Tadman, Golub Law Firm for their generosity. Their sponsorship included the cost of commercially printing the image onto poly satin, batting and backing fabric, needles and thread and tea and dainties like Grandma’s for the inaugural event.

Thank you to Dan Coates and Alex Vanderhooft of Valley- Apparel + Display, the local Winnipeg Company who produced the HEALING BLANKET’s quilt top using the Dye Sublimation process.

Thank you also to The Winnipeg Arts Council for the award of a Production Grant in 2009 that initiated this local collaboration.

THE IMAGE:
As the event sponsor I invited my husband to choose the motif from my painting archive. After much consideration he chose to honour the 10th anniversary of a friend’s passing by selecting the image of “Red Sky at Night, Sailor’s Delight”, a very small painting that we also refer to as “Campbell’s Tulip”.

Campbell Wright was an accomplished Lawyer, father, husband, colleague and friend who gave back to his community during his short life. We know he would have supported the intention of this initiative and been excited to know the HEALING BLANKET was to take up residence at the new Ronald MacDonald House in Winnipeg.

Doris Onchulenko shown here between her sons taught me the simple stretching technique she used in her own quilting bees.

The Tulip, once a form of currency banks inspiration on many levels. The Tulip is delicate yet has the strength and fortitude to rebound perennially despite harsh and sometimes challenging circumstances. The metaphor seemed appropriate for a Healing Blanket so I was thrilled with my Husband’s choice of motif.

Additionally, as one of my first clients Campbell had commissioned a small acrylic painting of White Tulips for his wife. That painting hung in their home and oversaw our young families gathering and growing. Campbell’s commitment to community continued through his illness as he sought to support others with his kindness and generosity. Experimental treatments he underwent at the time have since paved the way for practices in common use today.

I was at the studio on the day Campbell crossed the rainbow bridge. Art can be therapeutic and on that day I had picked up a small panel c. 12”X 14”, and began adding colour to simply address a need to make marks in acrylic on a surface. The single white tulip that features on the Healing Blanket grew out of the materials on my palette. Later I learned of the news and realised this little painting had been composing itself at the time of his transition. It felt like a parting gift that I passed on to his wife Lynn. It was not until much later that this image became the focus of this Healing Blanket initiative.

THE QUILT AS A COMMUNITY CONNECTOR:

I am drawn to community and the small and subtle ways people connect. My Mother in Law Doris Onchulenko was a keen quilter. Her winter practice of hosting a traditional quilting bee was inspiring on many levels. These events often became the focus of a community of women who gathered together in each other’s homes to share in the work of celebrating new beginnings. The quilt tops were the focus of a social and creative afternoon for the women who created them and they also provided a space for compassionate support, companionship and perhaps even a little bit of healthy competition.

I was touched by the gift of a Grandma quilt at our wedding shower and my children have each received the gift of Grandmas time and attention that remains in the quilts she has made for them. Inspired by my Mother in Law’s industry and intention I incorporated the simple system she devised and used to set up and dismantle her quilt projects when it came time to quilt them. In her younger years when she was cognitively able, she would have been very excited to take charge of an event like the many we hosted at the studio or outdoors during events like The WAVE Interlake Artists Studio Tour in June and September most years

While Doris is no longer able to participate in such an activity her kindness and dedication to others is well remembered. It was a treat to see her hands remember how to stitch early in the life of this project, supported by her two sons, while her cognitive abilities had failed.

I love the details . sometimes it’s hard to describe why a small mark can leave such a large impact.

The Healing Blanket Project has provided encouragement for many. I feel very privileged to have heard stories of celebration and loss, to have watched Grandmothers and Grandsons working together with needle and thread in my backyard or my studio, to have seen husbands and wives, girlfriends and even large extended families be inspired and consoled by the process of sharing in a creative act together.

The scope of the project quickly grew beyond the simplicity of its original intention. It evolved to add an element of joy to the narrative that comes with challenging circumstances. The process helped many to soften the impact of loss, to find comfort in a creative pause surrounded by others and their stories. We discovered the power of community together and were reminded we are not alone in the many roads we travel.

The Healing Blanket installed in the stairwell overlooking the play structure at Winnipeg’s new Ronald MacDonald House, 2022.

The Healing Blanket wrote its own stories in the beginning. It was never intended as a memorial but many chose to remember those they had loved within this small creative act. Participants were under no obligation to share their rationale though they were encouraged to leave a note, a name, or an initial to the list of participants. For many time spent being present was sufficient. Some contributors left only a single stitch; others spent hours or returned for second or third annual visits. Some spent afternoons alone or with company. Grandmothers and grandsons, mothers and daughters, fathers, siblings, sisters, friends, girlfriends and extended families in every conceivable configuration met up, joined in or requested a private audience with The Healing Blanket.

I had the privilege of being a witness to the remarkable ways a colourful piece of fabric brought people together or closer to themselves. My job after creating the image and organising the community effort became that of a facilitator; a needle threader and knot untangler. I enjoyed all of the interactions, the laughing, the joking, the encouraging of reluctant participants to give it a try and sometimes the opportunity to hear the very human stories of inspiration, strength, courage, connection and compassion.

WAVE visitors add to the celebration by taking a moment to add their stitches in real time to this creative collaboration.

Deanna for example was a new friend, introduced to me at my Exchange District Studio. I came to know her through mutual friends who realising my studio was just down the road from cancer care hoped it might provide a coulourful healing oasis for her between treatments in the city. My friends were right and I was happy to invite a new friend to bathe in the healing value of colour. The studio is a cheerful place that overflows with colour through any season. Deanna had active and growing teenaged children of similar ages to mine so beyond mutual friends we already had many things in common. She had been fighting brave fight but as her prognosis declined her situation came to symbolise the importance of the project. I imagined her sat around the quilt adding stitches with her family and friends but as fate would have it only her family and friends left stitches in her honour on that initial Arts and Cultural Days weekend.

A couple of years later during one of The WAVE weekends at Ponemah the heavens had opened up with torrential rain so the Healing Blanket was ushered indoors and out of the weather. Later that afternoon while the rain continued to fall a Wave visitor knocked on the Bunkie door and asked if THE HEALING BLANKET was still available? Soaking wet and zipped into a rain jacket I didn’t recognise Deanna’s daughter until she said, “I think some people have left messages about my Mom”. We invited the family inside to gather around the precariously leaning rained out project and left them with their thoughts, memories and needle and thread to bring her memory to life with their creative presence, together.

I loved to witness visitors discover a new skill.

The Healing Blanket became a feature of WAVE events I participated in (www.watchthewave.ca). During one sunny WAVE weekend a visitor first observed the action around the stretched fabric and though reluctant to participate immediately, she did spend time at work with needle and thread. WAVE weekends can be busy in our Ponemah backyard so while engaged with other patrons I was pleased to see this guest had taken up the invitation to participate. When finished with a yard full of people, this guest then shared the story of a daughter’s last unsuccessful attempt at pregnancy through artificial means. The air was sacred around this conversation despite the activity going on around us and this guest paused before showing me the flower shape she had contributed. It was a daisy for a granddaughter who would have been named Daisy; the once hoped for child and distinct focus of a Mother and Grandmother that had turned now into a different story.

The Healing Blanket began in my Exchange District Studio. It spent time indoors at gallery events and outdoors at the lake during The WAVE Interlake Artists Studio Tour in many June and September weekends. The process brought people together, gave them a place to leave a physical stitch in time.

There were so many contributors and so many stories.There was also a young local couple, would be parents who found a way to publicly share the very personal news of miscarriage while stitching and healing. The Healing Blanket gave them an opportunity to air their grief and begin to heal from their loss.

There were stories of Dad’s making their first ever marks in fabric, newlyweds taking a moment together, lake neighbours and BFF tweens spending hours annually learning to sew and getting quiet with the creative process. There were even little brothers and sisters at the periphery or under what must have felt like a makeshift fort, not to mention at least one movie star experiencing lake country on a break in the filming.

My girlfriends gathered around the Healing Blanket with wine and cheese as we laughed and cried about one of our group’s palliative diagnoses. My own family gathered around the living room adding stitches in honour of our littlest cousin and niece who is now the Angel on our Christmas tree.

Through Edyn’s Journey we came to know of the very important work Ronald Macdonald House does across the globe. I hear only gratitude for all the staff and volunteers of this organisation who provide a refuge of kindness, compassion, and support for families in difficult circumstances, far from home.

I love this sentiment. There was a lot of this added to this community art quilt.

I have loved being the keeper of the Healing Blanket. If it weren’t for the Pandemic that effectively shut down any further licking of threads to coerce them through the tiny eye of a needle, I am sure the process would have continued until there was not a blank space left to fill on the surface.

The universe being what it is though, the timing of the end of the Pandemic coincided with the completion of Winnipeg’s state of the art new Ronald MacDonald House. The opportunity to donate to this remarkable organization has provided an opportunity to publicly share the message of the Healing Blanket . It was installed just in time for the grand opening.

Neighbours and WAVE visitors found time to be present with the creative process.

If you are reading the story of the Healing Blanket I hope you are encouraged by the joy translated through colour and stitch on this creative initiative. The Healing Blanket is a testament to the many connections we make on our human journey through all its potential narratives.

The Healing Blanket now, appropriately, overlooks healing children at play and I couldn’t have imagined a more suitable home for it.

From this vantage point the simplicity of “Campbell’s Tulip” can offer the inspiration of colour and the healing intentions of hope and renewal to all who view it. Threads of connection and support will flow from the intentions of all who contributed to all who will experience the Healing Blanket into the future. My hope is that you will never experience the Healing Blanket in person, but if you do, please know you are safe within the kind and loving embrace of all who are committed to your healing journey.

May you find comfort in knowing we are never alone in the roads we travel.

The Healing Blanket;’s last WAVE involved hanging out on the areas iconic swimming piers.

It seems we have reached the end of todays backstory. Thanks for tuning in to this episode. I really appreciate you spending some of your valuable time with me. I hope the images are helpful and that you are finding something of your story within mine by listening in to the podcast, or catching up through this blog.

The meditation this episode is 11 minutes of self care . I hope you’ll pause with me. It begins at 15:30 in the recording.

LISTEN HERE

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Thanks for joining me. Hope to see you next Tuesday.

All best,

Amanda

Apple Trailer - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-at-the-crossroads-trailer/id1609992256?i=1000551067035