Americana Artist Kelly Burke | Black Lives Matter Flag Quilt

I created the original oil painting that this quilt is based on after the 2015 uprisings in Baltimore where I live. I felt that I needed to respond somehow through my artwork so I decided to creat a “Black Lives Matter” flag. After much thought I figured out a way to represent how I felt about the meaning of the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” The black and white symbolize our nation’s major racial divide and the stars in “50 shades of black” represent the diversity within the African American community. Being one of the lighter shades of “black,” I also wanted to challenge what “black” means when that word covers such a wide range of color, culture, and identity. I also integrated into the stripes the names of 192 African-American women and men, past and present.

I created the original oil painting that this quilt is based on after the 2015 uprisings in Baltimore where I live. I felt that I needed to respond somehow through my artwork so I decided to creat a “Black Lives Matter” flag. After much thought I figured out a way to represent how I felt about the meaning of the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” The black and white symbolize our nation’s major racial divide and the stars in “50 shades of black” represent the diversity within the African American community. Being one of the lighter shades of “black,” I also wanted to challenge what “black” means when that word covers such a wide range of color, culture, and identity. I also integrated into the stripes the names of 192 African-American women and men, past and present.

I believe that the racism at the foundation of the Civil War of the 1860s was never resolved. And the goals of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s were never completed. So here we are today still dealing with some failures of both. Now with so many supporting the Black Lives Matter movement we have a chance for meaningful change for a better future for African Americans, which is fundamentally better for the future of all people in the US. I have reimagined an American flag that not only I can believe in but also I hope can inspire a meaningful dialogue and vision about how we can make the US a safer place for all its citizens to live out their lives fully. I created this quilted version of my reimagined Black Lives Matter flag to have it in a different medium that could be shown in more venues to a wider audience. But also quilts were a significant means of communication for slaves seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad. And quilt making has been an important part of African American art, especially for African American women such as the Gee’s Bend women. I wanted to participate in as well as remember that history through making a quilted version of my Black Lives Matter flag.

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