San Francisco. The effect resembled a patchwork quilt. Jones recalls, "I felt that we lived in this little ghetto on the West Coast which would be destroyed without anyone in the rest of the world even noticing. I knew we needed a memorial" (Bellm 35).
Jones created the first panel of the AIDS quilt in 1987, in commemoration of the death of his best friend, Marvin Feldman. The tribute was spray painted on a stencil panel. Although Jones's initial associations with quilting harkened back to warm memories of comfort from a patchwork quilt handed down in his family, the power of quilting as a representative American artform and communal activity is what has sparked the imagination of the project participants and led to the AIDS Quilt's unprecedented growth. Quilting bees have sprung up worldwide. Proponents of the AIDS Quilt claim that the project represents a "masterpiece" of community organizing.
Jones is no stranger to community activism. He has been involved in gay politics in San Francisco for more than 20
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