Heidelberg quilter portrays tragedy of brother’s death

Kitchener-born Barry Shantz was killed after standoff with officers during mental-health crisis

Speaking publicly about her brother’s shooting death by the RCMP is outside Marilyn Farquhar’s comfort zone.

But creating quilts to capture the tragedy, overwhelming loss and grief, and hope her brother and everyone touched by his death can find peace is a familiar outlet for the Heidelberg woman.

“I can speak through my quilts way better,” Farquhar said.

Kitchener-born Barry Shantz died in January 2020 in Lytton, B.C., after his partner called for help because he seemed suicidal and had a gun. A standoff with the RCMP ended when Shantz, 63, was fatally shot.

Since then, Farquhar has been advocating for better handling of a mental-health crisis by police and calling for investigations into the response the day her brother was killed.

“I wanted to create something powerful that would move people,” Farquhar said.

She designed and stitched three quilts she plans to exhibit, starting in an Abbotsford park where her brother led a protest calling for shelters for the city’s homeless. Shantz had been a tireless and outspoken advocate for the marginalized.

The first quilt was a self-portrait. Farquhar sits on the edge of her bed in a nightgown, her face cradled in her hands.

“That’s where I spent the first month. I spent it in bed.”

While making it felt therapeutic for Farquhar, she could only work on the quilt a couple hours a day because “all these feelings came rushing in.”

Farquhar also knew she wasn’t the only one affected by the terrible loss. Stitched in the background are her brother’s

friends, colleagues and some of the homeless people he fought to help. She got to know them all as she drew each one’s features from their photographs.

Another quilt is a portrait of her brother overlaid by the despairing thoughts he tearfully poured during a visit a few months before his death. Farquhar didn’t grasp the desperation in her brother’s words at the time and she hopes by sharing them that someone else may recognize a cry for help before it’s too late.

“I certainly didn’t before,” she said. “I heard him. I heard the words. I just thought he was venting ... I thought hearing him out was what he needed.”

The third quilt is about hope — a topic Farquhar struggled with portraying until she remembered the sight of eagles soaring on a trip to B.C. She thought of her brother finally being free from the mental illness that tormented him.

“I just wanted his spirit to be able to soar,” Farquhar said. “But Barry is not the only victim here.”

She wants the same peace for all the people who knew him. But there’s also the officers involved in the incident and so many others still struggling with mental illness and grief.

“It’s just my wish for people,” she said.

The trip out west Farquhar planned to exhibit her quilts is delayed due to further pandemic restrictions, and she’s hoping the situation will be better to travel there by the end of May or early June.

She plans to kick it off with an opening exhibit at Jubilee Park in Abbotsford, where her brother organized a temporary barricade to protect homeless people from the elements. Then she wants to find other venues to host the exhibit in the city and beyond.

An online fundraiser was launched to help cover the cost of shipping and travel expenses when she goes with the quilts to speak about her family’s story.

Farquhar hopes people will “pause and consider” when they see the quilts, and then start talking about how a mental-health crisis should be treated with compassion and not a military-style response.

“My ultimate, idealistic goal is this can contribute to change,” she said. “I want to make Barry’s death meaningful.”