KC Beaded Quilt

GK Callahan and Laura White

Fuse Beads on Wood

108” x 124.5”

The Kansas City Beaded Quilt was produced as part of a two-year community project with the Kansas City Blind, DeafBlind, Visually Impaired, their friends and family. The result is this ten-foot by nine-foot quilt made of 300,000+ colored beads. The beaded squares were assembled during beadings circles held at various non-profits, camps, coffee shops, churches, and meeting rooms around the greater KC metro. These “circles” helped to connect and honor the many participants who were instrumental in making the quilt a reality. The textural beaded grid of squares symbolically highlights the colorfulness and diversity of the communities, while demonstrating their togetherness to work on a large project, over time.

For this project, the beading process is as important and significant as the end product; the time spent in the “beading circles” is a form of art therapy, storytelling, and communing in a group setting. Callahan has found that making these murals echoes the relationship to the communal tradition of American quilt making. The making process can help to fine-tune the makers’ manual dexterity, their hand-eye coordination, memory, and even color and shape recognition, particularly in those who are visually impaired.

The Mural is the second community-based mural made out of beads Callahan has created with the blind and visual impaired community. This time Callahan was fortunate enough to partner with DeafBlind artist Laura White to see this mural come to life. White was instrumental in not only connecting to the communities, and mural’s design, but she helped improve the functionality of the beading process through feedback and peer communication.