OUTsource hosts Gayla, unveiling of diversity quilt

By Alexandria Hawkins

UK OUTsource will host the Gayla, the organization’s main event of the year, in the small ballroom of the Student Center at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

The event will consist of a student drag show, the Imperial Court of Kentucky drag show, free food from UK catering, a disc jockey and student performers.

“It’s the biggest event we host,” Ross Cowling, senior OUTsource resource coordinator and official planner for the Gayla, said. “We always have a huge turnout, great food and a great time.”

The unveiling of the Diversity Project, a quilt made by Catherine Brereton, Gaines Fellow and junior English and Gender Women Studies major, is set to happen early during the event.

The quilt began as a community based project with the thematic concentration of celebrating diversity and identity in the LGBT community by creating a large piece of yarn art as its visual representation. It soon gained world-wide recognition and participation.

The project began last September, when Brereton started putting up fliers and using different forms of social media to promote her idea.

By the end of January, 168 squares were sent to Brereton, and she began to assemble the quilt.

“Quilts came from literally all over the world, so many people wanted to be involved,” she said. “I received work from many people in Lexington, all over the US, Canada, South Africa, everywhere.”

The quilt is 140 square feet and weighs more than 100 pounds.

“It’s enormous, beautiful and really, really difficult to work on at this point,” Brereton said. “I wanted it to be a reflection of every individual personality and taste, not what I think it should be.”