New Book! - This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and Other Pieces

Wanted to share with you news of my new book! This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and Other Pieces.

During the last two years, I've had such an adventure challenging what we think we know about Harriet Powers (1837 – 1910) and her two known quilts (The Bible Quilt at the Smithsonian - and the Pictorial Quilt at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). You know that Mrs. Powers offered to sale her Bible Quilt to Jennie Smith for $10. Miss Smith, though, only had $5. But, did you know that there was ANOTHER woman who also wanted to buy the Bible Quilt?

This I Accomplish highlights nearly a dozen SIGNIFICANT new pieces of information about Mrs. Powers and her quilts.... including the lost 1882 Lord's Supper Quilt! Or, how IOWA plays an important part of Mrs. Powers' story. Yes, IOWA! Did you know that we might not know about Mrs. Powers' Pictorial Quilt at the MFA if the outcome of a 14 year adulterous affair and three year legal battle had gone the other way?!?

Along the way, you'll also read about other nineteenth century Athens, GA black women in Mrs. Powers' community who quilted! You'll read about other needle arts on display at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta as well as the great Negro Day at the fair, where more than 30,000 African Americans from across the country came to celebrate the displays in the Negro Building, where the Bible Quilt was on display.

Finally, This I Accomplish illustrates proof that Mrs. Powers was a literate, award-winning quilter, who stitched at least FIVE quilts and stood up for herself as an artist! In the course of the research, in a file no one thought about in decades... was a copy of a letter FROM Mrs. Harriet Powers!! Can you imagine - a letter from an ex-slave who writes about her artwork! If you are an artist or quilter, you MUST read what she writes!

The book is 180 pages, $19.95 and includes about 20 pictures. Bill Gaskins wrote the foreword. ISBN: 978-0-9824769-5-0. There's an extensive annotative bibliography, fun timeline, and more! I hope the clues in the book can help us find the Lord’s Supper Quilt – or one of the other lost Powers quilts! There's also a mystery waiting to be uncovered in Alabama, but you'll have to read the book to find out more about this! This I Accomplish is available on Amazon.com or by special order at your local bookstore. You might also ask your local library to order it. I hope you enjoy This I Accomplish! Best, Kyra E. Hicks

Who Else Would I Talk To .... This I Accomplish Research

During the course of my research for This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and Other Pieces, there were several people I would have loved to have found and talked to... or maybe go back in time to meet!

• The Baltimore, MD branch of Oneita Virginia (Jennie) Smith's family
  
• Bessie Mell Lane, who attended the Lucy Cobb Institute and actually knew Jennie Smith
• W.D. Griffeth - the secretary of the Northeast Georgia Fair. Would love his first person account of the quilts at the fair!
• Julies Cohen, a local merchant and first Jewish elected official in Athens, GA. He sold fabrics - I wonder if he sold any fabrics to the Black women in Athens, including Harriet Powers. Does his extended family have any papers from Cohen dry goods store?
• Madison Davis - the president of the Colored Fair in Athens in 1886. He went on to become an elected representative in the Georgia State Legislature. Did he or his wife know Harriet Powers? Are there any papers or letters of his Fair work surviving?
• Irvine Garland Penn, president of the Colored Building at the Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895. What additional words did he have to say about the textiles and quilts at the Expo?
• I'd love to learn if Anne Brumby, one time Dean of Women at University of Georgia, sister of Admiral Frank Hardeman Brumby and friend of Jennie Smith, kept a diary and recorded any messages about HOW she helped distribute Jennie Smith's affects.
• I would love to have met Harold M. Heckman, University of Georgia accounting professor, who was Jennie Smith's executor. From those I talked to who knew him, he seemed a wonderful man.
• Who purchased the letters and other contents of Lorene Curtis Diver's Keokuk, Iowa home in 1959? Do any extended family members of Samuel Ryan Curtis (1805-1866), uncle of Lorene have any letters from her?
• Many more accounts from those who attended Negro Day at the 1895 Expo.
• What would Athens photographer Charles F. McDannell have to say about the afternoon he photographed Harriet Powers?
  
• Can someone find the Atlanta University Board of Trustee records for about1898? Who REALLY commissioned the Pictorial Quilt from Harriet Powers? Hmmmm!
  

Tina Williams Brewer Receives Lifetime Achievement Award!

Congratulations to Tina Williams Brewer for receiving the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to the area's cultural richness! She was honored on June 12th, which the Pittsburgh City Council declared as Tina Williams Brewer Day! You Go Sistah Quilter!

There is also a book titled "Tina Williams Brewer: Guided by the Ancestors" available from PCA for $25 - contact Jen Carter, Shop Manager, 412-361-0873, shop@pittsburgharts.org for info on how to purchase the book. (Photo here from a Pittsburgh City Paper article.) Enjoy!

From Functional to Fancy: An Eastville Quilt Sampler exhibit - Opens July 18

Curator Patricia Turner presents “From Functional to Fancy: An Eastville Quilt Sampler” exhibit from July 18-August 11, 2009139 Hampton Street, Sag Harbor, New York, 11963. at the Eastville Heritage House, The opening reception is July 18 from 2 – 5pm and is open to the public. Exhibit admissions is $3 for adults.

According to the press release, the exhibit features a wide range of quilts and quilting styles including a life-sized quilt depicting legendary entertainer and activist Josephine Baker. Created by Riche Richardson, Ph.D., the Baker quilt, complete with a three dimensional banana skirt, was most recently exhibited in Paris, France.

The exhibit also includes a quilted tribute to President Barack Obama, conceived and created by Dolores Vitero Presley of Oakland, California. Other established quilt artists include Kyra Hicks, Marion Coleman, and Julia Vitero. The exhibit contrasts these art quilts with more conventional quilts made for utilitarian purposes by members of the Alabama Freedom Quilting Bee. Enjoy!

Ebony Stitchers Quilt Guild, - New Show July 23

If you are down Georgia way, do visit the exhibit titled "Award Winning" by the Ebony Stitchers Quilt Guild in Decatur opening July 23. The exhibit features quilts that celebrates African American Academy Award and music winners - yes, the black film stars and singers! Visit the Guild's website for details or contact Ebonystitchers1@bellsouth.net. Enjoy!

Sew with Sara - Encourage your teens to stitch!

Summer is here - You can encourage your teens to "Sew with Sara," a new book with easy-to-make pjs, pillows and bag patterns. Sara Trail is a 9th grader from the Oakland, CA area. Enjoy!