The Doomsday Clock has been many things to many people, but never the centerpiece of a quilt. Until now. Pam Collings, a member of the Sinnissippi Quilters Guild in Rockford, Illinois, featured the Clock as part of a project to interpret a public symbol using only black, white, and one other color.
It turns out that the Clock, with its ability to synthesize the complex global security picture, was an ideal subject for the quilt. “If you know anything about quilting you would recognize before midnight as being nice neat little log cabin blocks with the hearth [red center] clearly defined,” she explains. The area to the right of the Clock, her portrayal of after midnight, is a combination of black and white patterns combined in a more chaotic manner.
Collings loaned her creation to the Bulletin for display in a public meeting area that includes magazine covers from all 18 Clock changes since 1949 and original art from Clock designer Martyl.
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