This quilt is one of a series of quilts I generated following Election Day 2024. There were so many changes to laws, funding, access – especially related to my discipline and my research – that I used my sewing machine for Processing the Policies. Explore the collection.

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This quilt has been on my list to make for several months – since February 2025, actually. This is when federal agency employees were instructed to “drop everything” and remove from their websites any mention of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) policies, programs, profiles, and more. Soon, NPR was reporting how NASA instructs employees to remove pronouns from all work communications (NPR, February 6, 2025) and Here are all the ways people are disappearing from government websites (NPR, March 19, 2025). Although most of the reporting was on the actions of NASA (NASA moves to erase ‘women in leadership,’ ‘Indigenous people’ from websites, then NASA wipes graphic novels about women astronauts from its websites, etc.), Arlington National Cemetery also removed educational material about the history of women and people of color in the armed services. The U.S. Army and Navy took down pages about the Navajo Code Talkers. The deletions continued.

My heart sunk so much when these reports came out, and that the materials and profiles of underrepresented people in STEM were so quickly and easily removed. I identify as a female scientist, and I did not know about any women in science growing up, save for Jane Goodall. I’m thrilled that young students now have access to online stories, images and videos where they can see, hear, and learn from all that participate in STEM. The inclusion and dissemination of the broad participation in science has come so far since I was a kid – and to be deleted so quickly???

I took these actions personally, even though no information about myself was removed from any website (not that I know of, at least). Although there was such a public outcry to these actions which resulted in some of the websites quickly being restored (NASA’s Women at NASA site is available, the Army and Navy started bringing back pages, for example), it hurt to know that the work of those trailblazers before me and current ones could so easily be removed with just one click. So I channeled my frustrations into the following quilt.

The name of this quilt, HTTP 404, comes from the error message you receive if you try to visit a web page but the page is missing or has been removed. Your browser is able to get to a server, but that server is unable to connect to that final destination.

I placed the words Women In Science across the quilt, then created a bright red “delete” button over the letters W and O to represent the removal of the profiles and even mention of women scientists from government websites. The background fabric is all science symbols in black and white. I chose the absence of color to reflect the absence of diversity on these websites – and, unfortunately, what could happen moving forward in time in science overall.

I felt that the quilt needed something else besides these letters, and I thought back to this summer, when I traveled to Norway and saw an incredible statue that made such a powerful impression on me. Fisherman’s Wife is a bronze statue constructed in 1999 at the entrance to Svolvær (Norway). At 4.5 meters high, this statue looks out over Vestfjord and: (a) greets the fishermen who are out fishing; while (b) using her hand to shelter herself from the weather as she looks out to sea, worrying about whether her husband will return safely. She immediately popped into my mind as I was working on this quilt, as I saw her on an overcast day. In the case of using her on this quilt, I see her representing women that are working so hard – some fighting their way – to move forward in science to be seen/heard/included, trying not to be left behind, despite all the difficulties that come their way and the barriers they face.

Quilt measures 36 inches in height and 42 inches in width. Letters were cut with a Cricut Maker 3 machine. Background fabric in Science Lab School Doodle from Spoonflower.com. Quilt completed November 22, 2025.