Stitches with soul: Portland Modern Quilt Guild makes colorful splash at Art at the Cave's Pride Month exhibit

A handmade quilt serves a useful function - keeping you warm as you drift off to sleep - but it's also a piece of art containing stories, careful stitches and deeply personal messages from the maker.

The quilts and fiber art currently displayed at Art at the Cave gallery will make you sit up and take note. Their bright, playful colors and patterns please your eyes even as your mind works to unspool their meaning: freedom, resilience, equality, hope, memory, beauty and individuality. The pieces are part of the "Threads of Pride and Protest" exhibit, on display throughout June at Art at the Cave.

"These themes are really vulnerable themes," curator Sharon Svec said. "It just takes an incredible amount of bravery. It's one thing to create the piece but another to share it with the world and the public."

The exhibit, showcasing 70 pieces by 17 artists from Portland Modern Quilt Guild, is timed to coincide with local Pride Month celebrations. Many quilts sport LGBTQ+ motifs, like Catherine Sawyer's arresting "Becoming," depicting a rising phoenix in pale pinks and blues - the colors of the transgender rights flag. Svec called it "a gorgeous piece."

IF YOU GO

What: "Threads of Pride and Protest"

Where: Art at the Cave gallery, 108 E. Evergreen Blvd., Vancouver

When: Through June 27

Special events: Artists' Talk, 1-2 p.m. June 20; free

Information: artatthecave.com

Rising Out of the Shadows: Stories of Resilience

Art at the Cave will offer even more conversation-starting art during next month's exhibit, "Rising Out of the Shadows: Stories of Resilience," running from July 3 through 13 and featuring art, sculpture and videos by Native American "two spirit" and LGBTQ+ artists. "Two spirit," sometimes abbreviated as 2S, is an Indigenous term for people who embody both masculine and feminine attributes.

In addition to paintings and fiber art, the exhibit will showcase jewelry, beadwork and artworks fashioned from gourds. Most artists will exhibit two pieces - some pieces for sale and other, more personal pieces just to share with viewers. The exhibit will also include works by the late a.c.ramírez de arellaño, whose artwork was displayed at the Oregon State Capital and is now part of Portland's Permanent Collection of Public Art. The opening reception, 5 to 8 p.m. July 3, will include a blessing ceremony. The exhibit will also include an Artists' Talk from 1 to 2 p.m. July 18.

Art at the Cave will donate proceeds from art sold during this exhibit to Nara Northwest, a nonprofit organization that provides education, physical and mental health services and substance abuse treatment to American Indians and Alaska Natives.

However, Svec said the exhibit could just as well be any month, because it also deals with a broad range of social issues including immigration and racism. Svec said she's glad that Art at the Cave, which is owned by artist Anne John, can serve as a bridge between the artists and the public and "ignite some new perspectives and new conversations."

Art at the Cave also has ample space to exhibit the Portland Modern Quilt Guild's larger pieces, which can't be shown in smaller establishments where the guild often exhibits its work. The gallery is also displaying pieces that other venues have shied away from, like Sara Flynn's "First Amendment Game Quilt." Flynn was prohibited from displaying the quilt, which is laid out like a huge game board, at another location, Svec said. It's surprising that an artwork centering on the Constitution's First Amendment - guaranteeing freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly and petition - should provoke controversy, Svec said, but this exhibit invites questions and conversation. (A good example is Flynn's smaller work, "Pay Me Like a Man.")

"Art provides an approachable portal into difficult subjects or challenging subjects that we're not always comfortable talking about," Svec said. "Hopefully this exhibit will do that for our community."

The exhibit contains several thought-provoking works about immigration policy, like Debbie Rosenquist's "Libertad para los ninos," depicting, in quilt form, photos of children and families in government detention centers. Stitched into the quilt are actual quotes from detained children - "I am in jail and sad," from a 9-year-old girl - as well as a quote by James Baldwin: "The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality."

"It's visually striking and the closer you get to it, the more it really pulls at you," Svec said.

Cheerful colors and beautiful needlework belie serious topics. One particularly powerful piece, "Freedom of Religion," by an artist who goes only by the name Jeanne, showcases embroidery on a prayer rug belonging to someone killed in a hate crime. "I am not a terrorist" is emblazoned across the rug in precise stitches. Another piece depicts a grandmotherly figure holding back Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Yet another piece proclaims "resist stolen lands" and "resist Black codes."

Many of these quilts or fiber art pieces are painstakingly hand-stitched over many months, like "Fairly Isleish" by Gail Wiess, which took a year to finish. The 60-by-70-inch quilt, priced at $3,600, has 43 separate colors and is made of 2,897 pieces. (The smallest piece, just 12 inches wide, is $65.) Long-arm quilting machines were also used to create custom designs, Svec said, but the hand of the artist can be clearly seen in every artwork. These are not cookie-cutter quilts but pieces with verve and personality, pieces intended to communicate messages and arouse strong emotions, Svec said.

"It's giving people a forum to share their voice and things that are deeply important to them," Svec said. "Not all pieces have statements next to them but a majority do have statements, if someone is interested in learning more about the piece or the artist's story."

The exhibit also includes several "bog coats" made by Flynn, so called because the style is among the oldest known type of garment, worn by Iron Age humans and preserved in peat bogs for anthropologists to discover centuries later. The bog coats in the exhibit are for sale from $121 for a child's bog coat to $225 for an adult size. The bog coats are an artful example of a quilt's basic function: to keep you cozy. Svec said she hopes that the gallery will also serve as a welcoming space, where people can ward off the chill of a tough world by warming their senses with art.

"I think it's always important to have a community in which one feels safe and respected and loved," Svec said. "It's an honor and a privilege to have this space at Art at the Cave that can serve as a bridge between this messaging and the public at large."

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This story was originally published June 15, 2026 at 6:03 PM.