"I began COMFORTER after hearing of the large number of Afghan refugees in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It was the event that made me decide to follow my mother's example of making handmade blankets for displaced people. While growing up, our home was often a makeshift sewing factory; my mother surrounded herself and us with stacks of used clothes for recycling, stacks of cut fabric squares, boxes of worn blankets to be used for filling in new ones.. finally stacks of lovely, newly quilted comforters ready to be sent to the Mennonite Central Committee for distribution overseas. Living with this creative and generous process, fed my imagination. I found myself in dialogue with the recipients, trying to imagine their circumstances while learning effective and efficient sewing techniques.
Since by 2001, I had been active in 'Mail Art' for about 10 years, I felt that the action of blanket-making could become a long term, on-going art project that linked my art correspondents and friends. Since then, about 60 individuals and several school groups from 13 countries have participate in COMFORTER. The project has inspired me to encorporate the themes and techniques in my own art work and other projects.*
As of January, 2004, twenty COMFORTERS have been completed.
Participation is welcome from anyone at anytime. If you send me any number of fabric squares (6"x6" or 155x155 mm), I will sew them into blankets that will be distributed to displaced people by the Mennonite Central Committee (or their affiliates) or local charities. I will return photos and documentation about the project. On occasion, I host or participate in local 'sewing circles' with school groups, friends, and artists, in which others participate in sewing and quilting. If you are interested in sewing, let me know."
Mail fabric to : LOIS KLASSEN - Box 74540 Kitsilano - Vancouver, BC - V6K 4P4 - CANADA
Further information is available: blogzing@telus.net
*Lois Klassen documents the progress of COMFORTER and other art-actions on the loiszing blog: http://loiszing.blogs.com
Last update - January 9, 2004