It’s a sunny afternoon in the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming, where the birds are chirping. Fiber artist Kim Dixon Derouchey and her mom, Linda Dixon, welcome me to Linda’s home.
Kim, who lives in Lexington, joins her mom to work on a project honoring their dear friend, renowned poet and civil rights activist Nikki Giovanni, who died two years ago.
“The project is making a series of story quilts that interpret the works of Nikki Giovanni, who was my mother’s very best friend and who had been in my life since I was very little. And she recently passed. And I wanted this to be something that I could share with my mother,” explained Kim.
Giovanni grew up in Cincinnati. She first met Kim’s mom, Linda, in the 80s when she returned to Cincinnati to teach creative writing at the institution then known as the College of Mt St. Joe. Linda was on staff there. Linda and Giovanni met at the Christmas party for faculty and staff. Linda said they were the only two Black people in the big auditorium.
“And we spotted each other from across the room and came together that way. I, of course, knew who she was, but she didn’t know who I was, and we became instant friends then,” said Linda.
When Giovanni died two years ago, it was reported widely, including on NPR.
“Nikki Giovanni, one of the most celebrated poets of the last century, has died at 81. Her work includes more than two dozen poetry collections,” reported Michel Martin.
To the world, Giovanni was an icon; to Linda, she was a good friend.
“It makes me feel good to talk about her even though it’s made me a little teary. I just have not been able to accept her loss yet,” said Linda.
Kim received a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to produce three story quilts based on Giovanni’s work. She and her mom are both quilters, but Kim is taking on the artwork for the project. The two women discuss the poems and collaborate on ideas for the quilts. Kim recalls the themes of the poems they chose.
“They really do have to deal with Blackness. All of Nikki’s poems, I think, in some ways are about the African American experience and womanhood. Like the first poem that I looked at that my mother really wanted me to do, was Nikki Rosa, and that has a theme in it about childhood,” said Kim.
Sitting at the round dining room table, Kim lays out her design ideas for the poem Nikki Rosa. Linda tells Kim her take on the piece.
“The poem Nikki Rosa is really autobiographical. And so, it’s her talking about her childhood, so to speak, and the appreciation of her childhood, but the perception that outsiders might have of her childhood, “ said Linda.
“Childhood remembrances are always a drag if you’re Black. You always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet. And if you become famous or something. They never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself,” read Giovanni.
That’s a recording of Giovanni reading part of her poem, Nikki Rosa.
Kim and Linda also selected Giovanni’s piece called Hands: For Mother’s Day. They drape the quilt representing that poem over the table. The images of women like Coretta Scott King and Jackie Kennedy stand out.
It actually does have Jackie Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy in the picture, but it is about women, and especially Black women, and the sacrifice they had to go through, especially during the 60s and during the Civil Rights Movement,” said Kim.
Kim said she expects to have all three pieces completed in the next two years. They will eventually be displayed as a series.
Mom Linda said it’s a lasting tribute to their friend.
