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Quilts by Big Wes

Quiltmaker

Quilts by Big Wes is the work of Atlanta quiltmaker Wesley Hall. His quilts start with fabric that already exists: worn clothes and leftover scraps, cloth that has had one life and is ready for another.

That is the oldest idea in quilting. Long before anyone called it sustainable, it was called not wasting anything. Quilters made warm, lasting things out of whatever was on hand, and they invented a remarkable number of ways to do it. Wesley studies that history and keeps trying the techniques those quilters left behind, one quilt at a time.

A well-made quilt outlasts its maker. That is the reason to make one.

Chrysalis Lab

Social change practice

Chrysalis Lab is an Atlanta practice that describes its work as helping “courageous leaders co-create solutions that drive social change,” on the conviction that different results require a fundamentally different approach.

Its method is to bring people who see a problem differently into the same room and turn what they know between them into something workable: research and synthesis across disparate perspectives, community engagement, and design done with the people it affects rather than for them.

The Chattahoochee Brick Company Memorial Park and Greenspace Board was appointed by the City of Atlanta to guide what became of this ground: its members were charged with the visioning, planning, design, and redevelopment of the site.

Their stated aim was to promote public trust and to keep the process transparent, thoughtful, inclusive, and collaborative, so that the decisions about this place would be made with the community rather than for it. The Board was always meant to finish its work and stand down once the memorial, greenspace, and park opened.