Botelle School’s Community Quilt Brings School and Town Together

By Ruth Melville

Botelle School has chosen “Celebrating All and Creating Community” as its theme for this academic year. Each month the school plans to organize a special project, involving both the school and the town, to honor this theme.

Principal Lauren Valentino says the goal is “each month to plan a way to be inclusive” while also “reaching out into the whole community of Norfolk.”

For the first project of the year, in September, art teacher Shana Bazelmans came up with the idea of creating a patchwork quilt made out of paper that students and town groups could work on separately but together. Using materials supplied by Bazelmans, each participant had to make just one small paper triangle. Valentino says that “people feel willing to take a risk being creative when it’s something that’s manageable.”

Several groups in town were happy to take part, including the Hub, the Norfolk Foundation, the Norfolk Library, the Berkshire Country Store, The Guilded Artisan, the Norfolk Land Trust, the post office, National Iron Bank and the Norfolk Pub.  Along with kids at Botelle, the children at the Norfolk Early Learning Center and the Colebrook School also made triangles. At the Norfolk Library, for example, Bina Thomson, Eileen Fitzgibbons and Chris Keyes each made a triangle. Keyes says they were free to create whatever they wished, keeping in mind the Norfolk theme.

Once all the triangles—decorated with collage, sequins, colored markers—were turned in, Bazelmans joined them in groups of four into squares, trying to evenly distribute the pieces by types of design and level of skill. She then joined the squares into one large quilt on a blue background and added paper fringe.

The lively and colorful quilt has been on display in a Botelle hallway for the past month, but it’s going to be traveling around town in December so that more people can see it. Look for it first at the Hub and then probably The Guilded Artisan and other spots.