Quilt serves as tribute to victims of Sept. 11

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Carla Hill, the director of the "Quilt & Textile" show does a walk through before the show started at the Batavia Community Center on Friday. Terence Guider-Shaw~For Sun-Times Media

Updated: November 5, 2011 5:21PM

BATAVIA — Lois Jarvis didn’t know those who died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2011, but she’s been able to carry the memory of their lives.

Jarvis, 58, has created a quilt titled “Ground Zero” featuring the photographic images of men and women who died when the towers collapsed.

“I felt like the Holy Spirit was sitting on my shoulder and using my hands to make this quilt because there are so many inconsistencies that I could never have planned,” Jarvis told The Beacon-News.

The Batavia Depot Museum is hosting its fifth annual Quilt and Textile Show this weekend at the Eastside Community Center and Shannon Hall at 14 N. Van Buren St., where visitors can admire nearly 200 artisan quilts — each with a different story.

As the nation marks the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, Jarvis returned to Batavia to display her quilt in a special section devoted to American patriotism.

The show features a traveling exhibit of U.S. Navy quilts to celebrate the 100th anniversary of aviation made by quilt artists from as far away as Alabama, Colorado and California.

Jarvis said she used traditional quilting techniques to create a Lone Star pattern that expresses the feeling of movement. The inner border is meant to contain the blast, while the outer border in shades of gray, captures the colors of those days following the terrorist attacks: the smoke, dust, sadness and shades of a nation in mourning.

Jarvis said the quilt was featured in the 2010 Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England, and has been exhibited in 135 other sites.

“One woman is on the quilt twice,” Jarvis said. “I later read in her obituary in the New York Times that she was pregnant.”

Jarvis, who hails from Madison, Wis., is hoping to exhibit the quilt in New York to mark the tenth anniversary of the lives lost on Sept. 11.

The Quilt and Textile Show, a fundraiser for the Batavia Depot Museum, is marking its own anniversary. As many events have come and gone, the artisan quilt show has continued to attract an increasing number of art quilters, visitors and people interested in getting on the mailing list for future shows.

“There is a resurgence of art quilting — it is an art,” said Carla Hill, Depot Museum director.

The Eastside Community Center is inside the former sanctuary of Holy Cross Church, and it is easy to see how the designs of quilts create connections between people and notable worldly events.

“The exhibit is especially beautiful in the morning when natural sunlight streams through the stained glass windows and illuminates the quilts,” Hill said.

Among those on display are two mother and daughter quilts; an entire Batavia family of quilts; and another quilt that was a retirement memory gift to Dr. John Z. Williams of Aurora, made by operating room nurses following 30 years of service at Rush-Copley Medical Center. There’s also a display of vintage quilts, where people share the quilts of their grandmothers, aunts and babies.

The Quilt and Textile Show runs through Sunday. Hours are 1 to 6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $6 for the general public and $5 for seniors, with children ages 10 and under free.