July 2003

The NAMES Project: Moved but Still Moving

by Sue Kuebler

I have been attending NEAC conferences since 1991. It has been a wonderful journey. NEAC has been my mentor, my spiritual advisor, and a place where I found a network of people who affirmed many of the things I was trying to accomplish in our fledgling attempts at AIDS Ministry in the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania.

When I was elected to the Board of Directors in January 2003, it was explained to me that our meetings would always incorporate site visits to AIDS ministries. At our April meeting in Atlanta, one of our stops was to be the NAMES Project Foundation, the new home of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Board member Sue Kuebler, a quilt seamstress, Gert McMullan, NAMES Project quilt production manager, and NEAC co-chair Bruce Garner at the Atlanta home of the NAMES Project.

Board member Sue Kuebler, a quilt seamstress, Gert McMullan, NAMES Project quilt production manager, and NEAC co-chair Bruce Garner at the Atlanta home of the NAMES Project.

I had visited the original NAMES Project where it had begun, in San Francisco. The project’s beginnings were at first political. A thousand young gay men had died of a mysterious disease and our government and health care organizations, whose job it was to investigate death and dying, had ignored them.

In 1985 an outraged Cleve Jones and a band of followers made it their business to post the NAMES of those who had died on placards that they placed upon the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. The images that were left by that act of homage and anger looked like a patchwork quilt. The rest is history.

That history made me wonder: How could the NAMES Project possibly leave San Francisco? How much had Atlanta experienced the anguish of those who had suffered and died and protested? Would Atlanta be able to be caretakers of this collection conceived in love and pain and suffering?

I had been a part of many Quilt Displays. Our Cathedral of St. Paul in Erie, Pennsylvania, was the first cathedral in the nation to host a NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt display; we did it as part of our World AIDS Day Observances in 1994. I had seen the Quilt lie upon the earth in Washington D.C. twice, reading the NAMES of those who had died. I was a panel maker. I had cried with friends, mothers, fathers, and loved ones of those that had died. Did Atlanta know how precious these panels were? Would they capture the essence of the passion that San Francisco brought to the Quilt?

As I walked though the doors of the NAMES Project on Krog Street in Atlanta, I expected to be disappointed. What actually occurred was quite the opposite. We were warmly welcomed by Aida Rentas, the Volunteer and Chapter Programs Coordinator, an effervescent grandmotherly woman who led us past brick walls and high ceilings and those Quilts—those wonderful powerful Quilts that serve as the largest history of a disease that still shows no signs of lessening.

My joy escalated when I discovered that the heart of the Quilt was still there in the person of Gert McMullin, Quilt Production Manager. To know Gert is to love her; if you meet her once, you will not forget her. When I think of Gert and her passion for the Quilt, I am reminded of Christ’s love for us, and how God knows and loves us intimately. Gert knows and loves every single panel that has ever been presented. She should. She is the one that sews individual 3-foot by 6-foot panels into the 12-foot-square blocks that tour the country today, reminding us all that AIDS has not been eradicated and that lives and hearts are still being broken.

The new facility in Atlanta—a wonderful sprawling warehouse that contains a workshop where the individual panels are sewn together—is alive with color as the Quilts are suspended from the ceiling and hung on the walls. Beside many blocks are histories of those represented on the panels and newspaper articles with pictures of Quilt displays from Washington D.C., universities, and Gothic cathedrals. Glass cases contain NAMES Project merchandise, which many of us had to have!

The staff work stations are open and welcoming. Somewhere in their office everyone has a stuffed monkey reflecting their personality, a trademark gift from Gert.

Quilts that are not out on display are housed on sliding shelving in a room that is climate-controlled and full of light. In this room is part of a collection of 150 black and white framed photos of The Faces of AIDS that were part of a 1999 exposition that told the stories of Midwesterners living with HIV and AIDS. Gently they remind the viewer that AIDS is not over. Anyone who becomes caught up in the beauty of the panels and the expansiveness of the offices is quickly reminded by this collection of photographs what the NAMES Project is all about. Many of the photos have a simple black ribbon on the lower left corner indicating that the person portrayed has died.

Atlanta has captured the essence of the Quilt. It is captured in the loving way the Quilts are preserved by enthusiastic staff members and volunteers. It is captured in the hopeful expectation of working with the Smithsonian and other national organizations to increase awareness of the pandemic proportions of AIDS. It is captured in Atlanta’s commitment to continue to find the funds to archive letters from panel makers. It is captured by making the Quilt available and affordable to schools, organizations, and churches as a teaching tool so that young and old alike may learn lessons of compassion and prevention.

Perhaps it’s obvious that I’m passionate about the Quilt. Although Atlanta did not conceive the Quilt, I learned as we toured other facilities there that Atlanta has suffered as well and the stigma of AIDS is still strong there.

As difficult as it must have been for San Francisco to turn over its child to Atlanta, that child has grown and is happy in its new home. I encourage you all to visit the NAMES Project when you’re in the area. Meanwhile, you can visit the web site at www.aidsquilt.org. Learn more about hosting a quilt display. Make a contribution to the project. If I may paraphrase a lapel button created by NAMES many years ago: you must see the Quilt to understand.