There are moments in the creativity journey when we seek inspiration—when we brainstorm, pin ideas, and wait for the spark. And then there are moments when the Muse arrives uninvited, tapping us on the shoulder with a message we never expected to carry.
The idea for the Victims Quilt Project came to me this way, not through a conscious act of creation, but as something that felt almost given—urgent, insistent, impossible to ignore. It came in the days following the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. I had been thinking about contributing to a comfort quilt effort, when the thought landed: No, you need to make a quilt for the victims instead. Who is making a quilt for them?
That thought didn’t feel like mine, exactly. It felt like something whispered into my ear. It felt like the Muse.
I resisted. I argued. The project felt too big, too heavy, too painful. But the idea wouldn’t leave. So I began. And over time, I have created 17 quilts to honor the names of those lost in mass shootings with more than 10 victims across the United States. For a while, the project carried me. And then it became too heavy to carry—especially after Uvalde.
The children who died in that school shooting were the same age as my daughter who celebrates her 13th birthday this month. For nearly three years, I couldn’t bring myself to start their quilt. But now, as I prepare for a memorial event hosted by an organization that uses the arts to promote social justice, I’ve returned to the project. The Uvalde quilt is nearly finished. It will be ready in time.
And in the process of stitching each name into cloth, I’ve remembered something essential: the Muse doesn’t always bring us lightness and joy. Sometimes, she hands us a responsibility. A truth. A story that must be told.
And if we’re willing—if we’re still enough to listen—what she gives us might become our most important work.
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