Quilt “Tu me manques”

(Work in progress)

This quilt speaks to my complicated relationship with France (where I grew up) and my queerness. I feel a growing distance between myself and French culture. Throughout my adolescence, I rejected the francophone world for being a rigid place where I couldn’t be myself. I gradually stopped surrounding myself with French speakers, and eventually, I moved away.

“Tu me manques” in French or, as printed in small print on the white fabric, “I miss you” is stated as the message the quilt shares. Maybe missing a person I used to be, an expectation, or the person I could be. The direct translation is “you are missing from me,” offering the additional meaning that there is part of me that is missing.

The type is drawn to resemble the cursive writing I would use in French, designed out of fabric squares and triangles. The grid printed on the squares is the rigid grid used in France for cursive writing.

It was important to me to have this message on a large quilt, an important work of labor to scale with the emotional weight of the sentiment. The quilt takes on a new role as an object to comfort and envelop, bringing some emotional consolation.

Process

Zine: RiSD Remember