Oct. 10, 2025 | By LaToya Pegram, AATA Multicultural Committee Chair
The AATA Multicultural Committee (MCC) Quilt Project 2025 started this year’s fabrication work from a place of needing and wanting to pivot. We wanted to change up how the labor and timewas committed to make a yearly quilt that has historically combined color blocks from the MCC quilt workshops at our AATA conference. We also wanted to challenge ourselves to make practical and washable fabric quilts of beauty that could be used and loved by their purchasers in everyday ways.
The MCC yearly quilts are auctioned or raffled each annual conference to raise money for the Pearlie Roberson Scholarship Award fund, sponsored by the AATA Multicultural committee. However, the money raised each year versus the time and labor engaged to make the large and complex quilts were becoming more inequitable, thus changes needed to be imagined and implemented.
Last year at conference, the AATA Multicultural Committee and Robert Lackie encouraged Natalie (quilt sewer) and LaToya (MCC Chair) to CHANGE THINGS UP for 2025!
What happened is described in the following timeline.
The Past 11 Years…
Quilts are typically made whole by many parts. For the past 11 years, the Pearlie Roberson Scholarship Award quilts were sewn by Natalie Carlton, with material and emotional assistance from collaborators in Philly and the AATA Multicultural Committee.
The quilts created from 2014 – 2024 are beautiful wall hangings—filled with handmade imagery and machine sewn quilting techniques that showcase the “many hands” which are the small artworks workshop participants lovingly make during each yearly workshop.
Innovative Quilt Work for AATA2025
This year, Natalie and LaToya innovated the annual quilt building and sewing processes to include digital scanning and subsequent designing of fabric color blocks to be collaged together or as stand-alone fabric prints. What has resulted from this multi-step process are large-scale printing of multiple fabric designs, whose imagery was made by the MCC Quilt Workshop attendees at the 2024 conference.
Said another way, Natalie and LaToya applied digital scanning and design processes (using Procreate and Photoshop software) to 21 color blocks made at the previous conference to then be printed and sewn together to form visually cohesive and contrastive quilts and tote bags. In total, we made 39 distinct fabrications – four fabric quilts titled Tree, Water, Mountain, and Bird and 34 tote bags that are handmade, upcycled, one-of-a-kind, and hand and machine-built to sell and raffle off as the Pearlie Roberson Scholarship Award fundraiser at this year’s conference.
“In total, we made 39 distinct fabrications – four fabric quilts titled Tree, Water, Mountain, and Bird and 34 tote bags that are handmade, upcycled, one-of-a-kind, and hand and machine-built to sell and raffle off as the Pearlie Roberson Scholarship Award fundraiser at this year’s conference.”
LaToya Pegram and Natalie Carlton hosted multiple sewing labs in the art therapy classroom studio at Drexel University’s Philly campus classroom to design and sew together these objects of practical and aesthetic beauty. We were joined by graduate art therapy Drexel students and friends and community supporters. More than building quilts and tote bags of practical beauty together, we have deepened our creative thinking and artistry for this project together and found new ways to accomplish the ongoing goals of supporting AATA research and art therapy projects for marginalized communities, DEI advocacy, fundraising, community building, and connection within our national art therapy association, and solidarity in our own lives and relations.
The overall process and tangible results have created a rewarding journey of sustained planning and teamwork, constant evolution of ideas and resources for the MCC Quilt Project artworks for sale and auction, as well as the workshop structure that are being debuted at conference this year.
Thank You to the Volunteers!
We want to honor the labor and volunteer work of several persons listed below:
MCC Quilt and Tote designers:
Yulia Semenova, LaToya Pegram, and Natalie Carlton
MCC Quilt sewers:
Natalie Carlton, LaToya Pegram, and Teagan Annesly
MCC Quilt & Tote sewers and volunteers:
Ren Cohen, Carolyn Hesse, Sharon MacIntosh, and Stephane Rowley
Special thanks to the artist and business owners who partnered with us:
Stephane Rowley at Crooked Stitch @crookedstitchlove
and Ben Volta at Mural Provisions
