Steve Prince has a “big, bold idea.”
With the help of William & Mary students, members of the community and many others, he’s piecing his way toward making a mile-long quilt.
For Prince, the director of community engagement and artist in residence at William & Mary’s Muscarelle Museum of Art, the Communal Quilt Project is more than an art piece to him. It’s a medium for people to tell their stories and build connections with others in ways that can facilitate change.
So far, he’s about a fifth of the way there.
“We’re all making and creating together, our own thing, but knowing that everything that you make is going to connect to your neighbor’s,” Prince said. “It’s going to be one continuous story made up of many smaller stories. That’s the metaphor of the project.”
Prince was hired by William & Mary in 2018, according to David Brashear, the museum’s director. As director of engagement, Prince’s role is to teach members of the community about the museum and get people involved in its initiatives.
“Steve is an incredibly high-energy person, and he’s a person full of love,” Brashear said. “He shares that love with everyone he’s with, and that makes him a very special person.”
Prince, a native of New Orleans, earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Xavier University of Louisiana and a master’s in fine arts in printmaking and sculpture from Michigan State University. He has participated in several residencies and exhibitions across the U.S. and shown his artwork internationally. Additionally, he’s taught art as a church youth director, a professor and a K-12 school teacher. He was recognized as Hampton City Public Schools’ 2010 Teacher of the Year.
“At the age of 5, I knew I wanted to be an artist,” Prince said. “I knew very early on that, what my dream was, and I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve done nothing else out of my field over the course of my entire career.”
Sometimes called an “art evangelist,” Prince enjoys making art while engaging others. He also uses art to convey powerful messages, often about heavy topics. Prince doesn’t tiptoe around sensitive issues, such as racism, or even that the university itself once owned slaves.
Monica Griffin, William & Mary’s director of engaged scholarship and the Sharpe Community Scholars Program, has sat in on Prince’s workshops and participated in them herself. She said Prince’s personality and approach to discussing such topics is not divisive.
“He’s provocative and warmly embracing at the same time,” Griffin said. “He can talk about (these topics) in ways that are more uniting than dividing.”
On the William & Mary campus, Prince has created two sculptures to recognize the university’s first three resident Black American students, in addition to leading multiple talks and workshops. The first piece, titled “Lemonade,” is a mixed media mural that was created with a group of students while Prince was a guest artist in 2017. The second piece, created in 2021, is of a sankofa, a mythical bird that looks back while moving forward.
“It understands very keenly that if it forgets its past, then it’s doomed to repeat it,” Prince said.
Prince said that ultimately his mission is to bring people together and promote healing through their stories and through making art. His philosophy follows a jazz funeral tradition he learned in New Orleans. A mournful tune called “the dirge” is played when a person is laid to rest, followed by a celebratory tune called “the second line.”
“In that movement, the musicians help those who come out to mourn, to cry out, to pour out, to express themselves,” he said. “But then … once that body is laid to rest, the music goes from a mournful tune to a celebratory one … they’re offering to that person a thanks for their life (and celebrating) their entrance into heaven.”
Prince said that while the tradition is intended for funerals, he sees “the dirge” in everyday struggles. His goal is to create spaces where, through art, people can share their dirge and others can offer support and help them heal.
“The second line is a space ultimately of renewal, or of rebirth. A space where if we go through the dirge, then we can get to a space of celebration together,” he said. “We’re always going to go through experiences of loss, in several different manifestations of it. But, in the midst of all that, can we still find joy? Can we find happiness? Can we find peace? Can we find true community? I think we can get there if we dare face the dirge.”
The quilt project
Prince said the origin of the Communal Quilt Project stems from a story about his great-grandmother.
As the story — passed down to his sister during quiltmaking — goes, Prince’s great-grandmother was an indentured servant with two small children. She knew it would be impossible to pay off her debt in her lifetime, so she came up with a plan. She knew no one would think she would ever leave her children. So, she put on a hoop dress, hid her children inside the dress to conceal them, and together they walked to freedom.
Prince shared this story with a group of Sharpe Community Scholars during a recent quiltmaking workshop. These are first-year William & Mary students who have a special interest in community engagement and social justice.
Such a story of “improvised survival” carries an important message, Prince said. His great-grandmother changed the course of his family’s life just by that one act.
Prince describes his talks and workshops as “visual sermons.” He doesn’t simply get up in front of the class and give art instructions; he weaves stories, history and even scripture into his lessons.
“As one may write a story and create a thesis, I create a story with my artwork that in essence has a theme or a message that I’m trying to get across,” he said. “Ultimately I don’t see any of this stuff disconnected.”
The quilt project launched about two years ago, with 30 feet completed in the first year. Since then, Prince has held workshops on campus, at churches, at retirement centers and at community events, traveling as far as Montreal. He’s taught the process to art teachers in Williamsburg and gathered contributions from their students.
He estimates he has close to 1,000 feet completed, he said at his recent workshop. He plans to measure it again in the fall, to coincide with the reopening of the museum, which is undergoing expansion and renovation.
The quilt’s squares are put together using fabric glue, so participants don’t have to know how to sew. All the fabric has been donated by people in the community, and Prince used grant money to buy the glue. Interns and volunteers have helped him piece together the squares, and so far he’s been able to keep the quilt in his office. Habitat for Humanity will store it once it gets too big.
Workshop participants are provided a blank square and instructed to think about an image to tell a story of their life. He said quilters often show some sort of significant event or challenge they’ve overcome. They are then invited to share their story at the conclusion of the workshop.
Prince said he’s always touched by the stories. For example, one participant shared that she’s a first-generation college student and grew up poor. She used to hoard food under her bed when she started at William & Mary.
“Sometimes that person needs to hear some words. So I find myself not only as teacher but I turn to counselor,” he said. “Most times I don’t have to do that work myself. Other people in the room will get up at times and walk to that person and say, ‘you know I’m here,’ or ‘I hear you, sister,’ or ‘I hear you, brother.'”
Griffin described being part of the quiltmaking workshop as “emotional.” She’s heard stories about illness, violence and mental challenges as well as those about happy and heartfelt times. The blend of all of those, she said, “kind of forces you to see that balance of things in your own life.”
Griffin said the experience also helped her to understand and relate differently to people after they shared their stories.
“It builds community differently,” she said. “This is somebody with a full story, part of which I got to participate.”
Want to add to the quilt?
Steve Prince’s next workshop is scheduled from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on May 8 at Grove Christian Outreach Center in James City County. Other events and summer camps at the Muscarelle Museum of Art can be found at muscarelle.wm.edu.
Sarah Ketchum-Pribush, sarahketchumpribush@gmail.com
