This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Quilt Raffle, Peralta’s oldest fundraiser!
Each year, artist-in-residence Ellen Oppenheimer works with hundreds of students to design an original pattern, dye the fabric, cut, sew and assemble a beautiful quilt.
Ellen’s quilts are a symbol of Peralta: many hands working together to create something beautiful—and having lots of fun along the way. Peralta quilts have been displayed at the American embassy in Moscow, an exhibit at the San Francisco Airport Museum, and at corporate offices for Levi’s, Kaiser, and others. Ellen is a textile artist whose work is included in the Smithsonian American Art Museum‘s collection. She’s done many projects in the Oakland schools, and has been working at Peralta for 15 years.
The raffle is an important fundraiser for Peralta’s award-winning art program, which needs your help more than ever now that donors have scaled back arts funding.
Check out a video of kindergartners working on the 2011 quilt.
A few photos of the quilt-making process:
Kindergarten and K/1 classes started by dying a rainbow of colored fabric.
students fold fabric that will be soaked in dye to make "shibori" style quilt squares
Students sew strips into traditional nine-patches for the 2011 raffle quilt
The best part: Getting to see how it will look, then sewing the pieces together (2011 quilt).