November 9 2016
Midnight: phone call from our 22 year old daughter distraught, United States has chosen an ignorant racist misogynist as its leader.
1am: our 19 year old daughter calls crying "I don't feel safe."
Later that morning I see that my teenage son has left his Constitution and American flag forlornly laying on the couch. They were given to him on Election night at the Clinton campaign headquarters in NYC.
Along with my children, I was devastated by this outcome. How can I make sense of this choice? To try to keep sane I knitted. When the pussyhat project was announced I knit 64 pussy hats for the women's protest march. I even made one for my dog. My local yarn store "Knitty City” became the local nexus of resistance. While knitting there we share our thoughts with local news, international press and the NY Times. We march, we debate next steps, and we call our representatives. Neighbors who had never knitted joined us, to pitch in, to help.
When the call for entries to Threads of Resistance came I knew I had to make something. I am an active fiber artist, over the last 10 years I have focused on knitting crocheting weaving sewing and quilting. Trying to organize my thoughts for this project I realized that data is one frame I put on the world. My interest in data analysis has a long history. After my graduation from MIT, I began work on Wall Street, in 1983 I analyzed hydroelectric investments using the early spreadsheet software, VisiCalc. Throughout the years the spreadsheet has been integral to my work life. By understanding the data maybe I could understand what is happening here. The flag my son brought back from the failed Clinton campaign was glaring at me. My first thought was to sew my own American flag with each star showing the differences among the states. This idea morphed into a quilt with each square representing a state. This quilts’ non-traditional shape reflects an unstable nation pulling apart.
I decided that a traditional quilt square would be the basis of my InfoQuilt. Ironically I selected the “Economy” square. As a minimally experienced quilter it seemed to be something manageable.
This project shares data by state. Each triangle represents a topic. The fabric printed Excel border shows the state ranking for each topic.
The triangle color is based upon rankings 1-50. Sources & Data www.purlsofwallstreet.com
1-20 Blue
21-30 Grey
31-50 Red
Larger triangle outside ring
Northwest 1 Access to Health Insurance
Northeast 2 Gun Deaths
Southeast 3 Women elected to legislature
Southwest 4 Resources to schools
Smaller triangles inside ring
North 5 Ease of starting tech/science business
East 6 Tax dollars returned to state by Federal government
South 7 Poverty
West 8 Drug Overdose
Square- Presidential Election result
One Observation: “Red “Nevada and New Mexico who elect women as representatives voted for Hilary, even if they have “red” values…. Iowa and Nebraska didn’t….
| Science Tech Index | http://statetechandscience.org/State-Technology-and-Science-Index-2016.pdf | |
| Slavery 1861 | wikipedia | |
| Access to health insurance | Centers for Disease Control(CDC) | https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-insurance.htm |
| Drug Deaths | CDC | https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db273_table.pdf#4 |
| Gun Deaths | CDC | https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm |
| $back from FED | https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/ | |
| Income | cdc | https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/poverty.htm |
| Education | NEA | http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/2016_NEA_Rankings_And_Estimates.pdf |
| Vote | Electoral college |
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