Jenny Laden

Cleve Jones

Watercolor on paper, 16 x 12”, 2020

"This work depicts Cleve Jones, Award-winning author and activist, who founded The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, one of the world’s largest community arts projects. As the daughter of a gay father who died from AIDS in 1996, I am drawn to the history of memorializing those we lost to the disease."

— Jenny Laden
 
 
 

PJ Mattera

The Quilt from the Monument

Photographic print on paper, 11.5 x 7.5”; 18 x 14” framed, 1996

Permanent Art Collection, William Way LGBT Community Center

"By reading the names of our family members, friends and lovers who have died from AIDS, Vice President and Mrs. Gore send the message that the AIDS crisis is the heartache and the problem of every American."

— Anthony Turney, director of the Names Project Foundation, 1996
 
 
 

Brett Bender

ART IDIOM ROSE

Ink on paper, 12 x 4”, circa 1990

"[I] left Manhattan coming home to Philadelphia in the early '80s after a few years of party and innocence. The move [was] lifesaving — peers suddenly contracting a strange new bug soon tagged GRID, later AIDS."

— Brett Bender
 
 
 

Elizabeth Coffey Williams

For Beautiful Lou Lou

Raw edge appliqué, machine quilting, 36 x 72”, 1995

NAMES Project: AIDS Memorial Quilt, Photograph courtesy of Frank J. Potopa

"[Lou] was a Philly kid, my dearest friend and he also appeared in the film Philadelphia. The director Jonathan Demme became so friendly with our Lou during the filming, that he was inconsolably grief stricken at Lou’s passing."

—Elizabeth Coffey Williams
 
 

Lorrie Kim

The Show Must Go On

Cotton fabric, cotton batting, cotton-polyester thread, purchased feather boa, cording, beads, gold lamé, purchased garter fastener, 36 x 72”, 1993

"The song 'The Show Must Go On' was released in 1991, the year of [Freddy] Mercury's death. The video contains clips of Mercury from previous videos and concerts, and the quilt contains references to those clips."

— Lorrie Kim
 
 
 

Eddy Rhenals

Spicy Meat-free Tacos; from the #FoodPorn series

Collage (magazine pages and glue), 20 x 16“ framed, 2021

"In the magazine section [of Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni's Room], I was attracted to the glossy, saturated, and glamorous poses on the covers of the 'vintage' porn publications. This very characteristic look of the '80s and early '90s magazines immediately made [me] think about the time when those were published, the AIDS crisis, the men in the magazines and those who read them at that time."

— Eddy Rhenals
 
 
 
 
 

William Way LGBT Community Center

1315 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107
P: 215-732-2220