Jocelyn Breeland, is a communications professional whose eclectic career journey has led her back to Stanford University, her alma mater. She is the fifth generation (at least) of needleworkers and fiber artists, at the end of a long arc from the expressive forms of Africa, through necessity in enslavement and emancipation, to tradition lovingly handed down, and artistic expression once again.

She enjoys her children and grandchildren, her dogs, cello lessons and travel.

Artist Statement:

Helenium Autumnale

This quilt (roughly 36” x 48”) is part of a permanent installation in the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Originally created as part of a Healing Quilts in Medicine project, the quilt features a flower used to manufacture cancer fighting medicine.

Magic of the Moment

This quilt was part of a juried show in 2007 to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown Colony in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America. It depicts the moment before the meeting of the Indigenous residents, European colonizers and the enslaved Africans, who followed shortly. Without attempting to minimize the violence and pain that followed over more than four centuries, it is an invitation to look at a moment when more positive outcomes were still possible, and a call to look for opportunities today to reset history on a positive course.