Orange: Healing Wings

The orange stripe on Gilbert Baker's original 1978 Pride flag represents healing. This is the sixth quilt in my Colours of Pride series, and the one that gave me the most trouble. Not technically, but emotionally. Healing is harder to make visible than most of the other colours' meanings.

I settled on the form of wings. The quilt wraps around the wearer like a hug, because there is nothing more healing than a hug from someone you love. The shape came from draping fabric across my shoulders and letting gravity decide where the panels should fall. Wings aren't about flight here, they're about being held.

Materials and Process

The back of this quilt is made from an upcycled sari with an incredible metallic sheen that is nearly impossible to capture on camera. In person, the fabric shifts between copper and gold depending on the light. I found it at a textile recycling market and knew immediately it belonged in this piece. The history embedded in a sari, the hands that wore it before me, felt right for something about healing.

I quilted it with fluorescent thread in a giant zigzag pattern. The zigzag echoes the weave pattern visible in the sari backing and creates maximum texture across the surface. The thread colour shifts under different lighting: subtle in daylight, almost electric under gallery lights.

The combination of the metallic backing and fluorescent quilting makes this piece behave differently depending on where and how you look at it, which feels appropriate for something about healing: it doesn't look the same from every angle, and it doesn't sit still.