ByKen Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Michiko Toyama's Hawaii upbringing is reflected
in the design of the U.N. quilt.
Piecing together
By Catherine Kekoa Enomoto
U.N. history
Star-BulletinA San Francisco quilter has made a beeline for her native Hawaii for Friday's 52nd anniversary United Nations Day celebration. Janet Glessner, who goes by Michiko "Mich" Toyama, has brought the U.N. 50th anniversary commemorative quilt she helped design and create. Hawaii is only the third state to view the quilt -- after California and Kentucky -- courtesy of Toyama, 47. She has returned home for her mother's 84th birthday and brought the quilt that took 50 women two years to complete.
"We love it," Toyama said about the 6-1/2-by-8-foot picture quilt. "We wanted to make a statement about how we feel about the U.N. and you can see that it's full of love. Every block was done with something that had love."
A quilt combines the bits and pieces of one's experiences -- fabrics, laces, threads, memories and history -- to lend texture to life's mural. A quilter's skill, patience and intent give each creation a special essence.
The centerpiece quilt panel that Toyama designed reflects her upbringing on a one-acre Waimanalo farm. Her parents grew papayas and green onions while she attended Kailua High and the University of Hawaii.
"I think of Hawaii as a rainbow of people and that's why there's all different kinds of people," she said of the centerpiece image. "The landscapes and the kinds of people and where I got to visit going through school are part of it. The University of Hawaii had an exchange program to New Mexico, so one year I lived in Santa Fe. The Indian things come out of that."
Toyama teaches art and sewing in the City College of San Francisco adult education program. "If you ever came to one of our Lincoln Park quilt classes, you would understand," she said. "It's a whole family for women to come to, and it's just a great big joy. Quilting bees are traditional. You sit around and you talk about your problems or you solve problems, and you stitch love into quilts.
The project began when Barbara Christiansen of the United Nations in San Francisco approached the class, which had made picture quilts for the Academy of Science in San Francisco and the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Odense, Denmark.
"There's a lot about quilting I love. It helps some people I teach to relieve stress. Sewing is actually supposed to be the No. 1 stress reliever; so more people should be sewing," Toyama said.
Toyama sat on the lanai of her family home as she described a family quilt.
"I made a quilt of this house for Mom when my father passed away. I put my sisters and brothers in Mom and Dad's hands; I appliqued it all around the block. Then, I quilted the hands of all our spouses and the grandchildren in it. So when she sleeps under it at night, it's a way for her to have everybody with her."
On the U.N. commemorative quilt, the 18 blocks range from UNICEF trick-or-treaters to a gauzy red nuclear blast representing nonproliferation treaties. Anchoring the quilt are San Francisco scenes of Coit Tower, Golden Gate Bridge, Transamerica Building and the "crooked street."
After all, the U.N. charter was ratified in San Francisco four months before it was signed Oct. 24, 1945, in New York City.
"That's why we did it," Toyama said. "And we feel that people should know that. People only think of U.N. New York. You always think of New York. But it's not (only) New York, it's San Francisco."
Commemoration
What: U.N. Day dinner, with Mike Wilson, chairman of the state Department of Land & Natural Resources, speaking on "Sustainability:Protecting Our Resources for the Future Generation," and quilters Michiko Toyama and Kirsten Havrehead, presenting the U.N. 50th anniversary commemorative quilt
