Faces Not Forgotten Quilts 

Every Faces Not Forgotten quilt holds eight children’s portraits. Why eight? Because eight children die in the United States every day due to gun violence. That’s nearly 3,000 every year. Each child is an important life lost. Each child has a face that will not be forgotten. 

We collaborate with national artists and university art students to paint these portraits. The original portraits are donated to the victims’ families. An image of the original portrait “face” is collaged with an image of a vintage handkerchief and printed on a canvas panel. We hand paint each child’s name on their panel and tie these panels together with black ribbons to make quilts.

Each quilt memorializes children from the same state. Today, we have quilts for 19 states and counting.

View all of our quilts. 

Why handkerchiefs?

An image of the original portrait “face” is collaged with an image of a vintage handkerchief. The handkerchief is a powerful symbol representing a mother’s grief.

Exhibits

 Exhibiting our quilts publicly is at the heart of what we do. This is how we work to raise awareness of the epidemic of gun violence against our nation’s children. We have been exhibiting quilts across the country since 2011. 

We often return to our collaborating universities with site-specific installations of our quilts. These events bring the victims’ families, artists, and the community together in a healing event memorializing these lost children and raising awareness of the issues of gun violence. We also present virtual exhibitions with a lecture, “The Power of Art to Shift Our Collective Consciousness.”

Contact us about setting up an exhibit in your space.