Thank goodness, Gov. Jim Edgar’s state made the cut.
President Clinton was not so lucky.
Illinois will be well-represented on a quilt of the United States created by 59 pupils from Turner School that will hang for the next several weeks in the rotunda of the state Capitol, the first time any artwork has been allowed to reside there.
Last year, as part of their social studies class, each of the school’s 5th graders researched and reported on one of the 50 states and then drew a picture to depict that state for a quilt square.
So what can be seen on the quilt’s blue background are a few more decorated white squares than 50, and some states more than others, some not at all.
Hawaii was pretty popular, and New York and Illinois made it a couple of times. Vice President Al Gore’s home state of Tennessee was chosen once. However, Arkansas, President Clinton’s home state, did not seem to catch on.
The pupils created the quilt with the help of one of their classmates’ mother, Emilie Pollman, who has two sons at the school and has created quilts with her older son’s classmates every year since he was in kindergarten.
“I love working with quilts, and I really enjoy working with children when it comes to quilt-making,” said Pollman. “When you work with adults, they are very tentative about changing what’s given them, but when you give a child a task, the imagination comes into it.”
And she said she is delighted the quilt will be displayed in Springfield.
“That was the idea I had when I approached the teachers, that this would be a great lesson for the children, a good chance for them to learn how to write a proper letter to their congressman . . .”
But it was a well-placed telephone call that brought it all together.
When Jan Lewan, legislative aide to state Rep. Thomas Johnson (R-West Chicago) received the telephone request from school secretary Colleen Vaughan, she immediately started calling around.
Although no one could ever remember art being displayed for more than a day in the rotunda, “I love a challenge and I took this challenge very seriously,” said Lewan.
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She contacted the secretary of state’s office. The secretary’s liaison, Keith Long, reaffirmed everyone else.
“When it happened, no one was more surprised than me,” Lewan said.
The 4-by-7-foot quilt soon will hang from the second-floor railing in the rotunda.
Although some pupils found the quilt-making hard work, most echoed Zach Deaton.
“It was fun, ” Zach said, “because we get to make stuff and have fun with our friends, and it’s cool to just look at everybody’s quilt.”