V is for Vera

The quilt and its embroidered motifs re-cite and re-imagine images, anecdotes and symbols from the Papers of Vera (Jack) Holme held at The Women’s Library Archives at The London School of Economics. It was created through a process of patchworking together the imagery and iconography of the suffrage movement alongside the symbols and signifiers of lesbian existence, culture and intimacy. The quilt is an intervention into heteronormative commemorative narratives, and a tender attempt at giving voice to lesbian desire, intimacy and memory in the archive. The quilt was created as part of the Hard Craft project and exhibition at Vane Gallery in Newcastle, 2018.

Central to the quilt are the elaborately embroidered initials EH and VH; all the other designs extend around this central motif. This sapphic monographing directly references the bed that Vera Holme and Evelina Haverfield (her partner) shared. After Evelina’s death in 1920, Vera wrote a list of belongings she wanted to be returned from their shared home. On that list was ‘1 Bed with carved sides V.H. and E.H.’ and below ‘1 set of Carving tools’ (Personal Papers 7VJH/4) suggesting not only that their bed was inscribed with their initials, but also that this may well have been done by hand by the women themselves. This cannot be anything other than an act of love, devotion and commemoration, within which these women chose to locate the bed as a site of shared importance to them. Made for the bed, quilts bring warmth and comfort as well as beauty. The quilt is soft, it absorbs—sweat and fluids holding memories like stains. (Sorkin 2012) A quilt can keep stories. This quilt re-tells the story of this romantic gesture. In a year of politics and publics, the quilt returns to the most intimate space of the shared bed.