Peggy Hazard is an independent art exhibit curator, artist and quiltmaker in Tucson, Arizona, who has served as the curator of the Migrant Quilt Project for the last several years. Her art history M.A. thesis surveyed local African American quiltmakers. Over a nineteen-year career at Tohono Chul Park, she curated nearly 100 exhibits portraying the diverse cultures and artists of the Southwestern United States, including exhibits of historic and contemporary quilts and needlework. She is a member of the American Quilt Study Group, Arizona Quilt Study Group, and volunteered with the Tucson Quilt Documentation team. She served on the planning committees for the Patterns of the Past quilt history conferences (1996, 1998 and 2001) in Tucson and co-presented From Cactus Needles to Quilting Needles, examining botanical-themed quilts in Arizona. She helped organize the Arizona Historical Society’s 100 Years/100 Quilts exhibit celebrating Arizona’s centennial and curated Quilts Making a Difference, an exhibit for the 2012 Tucson Meet Yourself folk life festival, featuring quilts created for fundraising and consciousness-raising purposes. In September 2016, she presented her Uncoverings 2016 paper, “What the Eye Doesn’t See Doesn’t Move the Heart: Migrant Quilts of Southern Arizona,” at the American Quilt Study Group’s annual seminar. In September 2018, Peggy was inducted into the Arizona Quilters Hall of Fame. Currently she is trying to “use up” her fabric stash, and stitches a couple of quilts each year.
Lecture
“Migrant Quilt Project: 25 Years of Loss and Remembrance in the Sonoran Desert”
The Migrant Quilt Project has documented the lives lost by migrants in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands since the year 2000. This year marks the year that the 25th Migrant Quilt will be created. Quilts are made by volunteer artists and are inscribed with names–or with the word “Unknown” or “Desconocido”–to represent every migrant whose remains were recovered within a federal fiscal year. The quilts are physically constructed in part from clothing discarded in the desert by other migrants, such as denim jeans, faded bandanas and shirts, camouflage knitwear, and embroidered textiles. The point of making and ultimately displaying a Migrant Quilt is to raise awareness of migrant deaths occurring in the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, and to inspire support for humane immigration practices. On a personal level, to participate in making a Migrant Quilt is an act of compassion and can be deeply affecting. Each quilt is unique, an artistic expression of its maker.
My presentation will provide a brief history of the Migrant Quilt Project and profile its quilts and the artists who made them. The talk will be followed by an opportunity to inscribe names on a new Migrant Quilt.