New Mary Mack fabric from Kweli Kitwana

Kweli Kitwana has designed cotton fabric based on the children's clapping game, Miss Mary Mack. You can purchase the fabric from Spoonflower.com. If you click here, you can see the cloth purse Kweli made with the fabric. Enjoy!

Eric Easter - "A man in search of a quilt"

I wanted to share this link to a December 2008 article by Eric Easter, Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing Company. On EbonyJet.com he wrote about his unsuccessful search to commission someone to create quilts from cherished clothes as keepsakes for his children. He penned ..."By my estimate, in the last five years I have spoken with or e-mailed about four dozen quilters and have had no luck." His 2009 resolution was to find a "Quilt Whisperer" to help with the search. I wonder - as we're now in 2010 - if he was successful. I hope so. Enjoy!

500 Art Quilts - An Inspiring Collection of Contemporary Work

Don't you just want to walk around and sit on the bench with this old man in the black hat? This quilt and more are featured in the soon-to-be published book 500 Art Quilts - An Inspiring Collection of Contemporary Work by Karey Breshenhan and Ray Hemachandra.
Included are quilts by Sistah Quilters Alice Beasley, Renee Allen of Atlanta, GA, according to one source, and Toni Kersey. I can't wait to see the book and see works by other well-known quilters such as Yvonne Porcella, Susan Shie, and Caryl Bryer Fallert. Enjoy!

Update: Congratulations to Diana Bracy for her quilt The Duke being included as well!

Your help: Who Manufactured this Harriet Powers fabric?

I swear - quilt history is such an adventure!

Unexpectedly, I received in the mail this upholstery fabric swatch featuring reproduced images of Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt now at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. A dear New Jersey reader of This I Accomplish sent it to me. She wrote in her letter:

"I began making quilts 48 years ago... and I became aware of Harriet Powers' work when I was a teenager. Her quilts have always held a special interest for me.... I am writing to send you copied images of some upholstery fabric that I bought many years ago in Manhattan. I do not know who made the fabric, but it is very sturdy woven tapestry ... I think that I bought the fabric about 20 years ago. It is 54" wide ..."

WOW! She also sent me an 11" x 14" color photocopy of the fabric. She mentioned that she didn't see the fabric listed in This I Accomplish. Well, I never knew it existed! Can you help? Do you know any information about this Powers fabric? Do Tell!

Call for Quilt Entries by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi

Dr. Carolyn L. Mazloomi just announced a call for entries into a juried exhibition titled "Beyond Category: Visions of Jazz in Fiber." The show will be featured at the International Textile Biennial (San Jose, Costa Rica) and the University of Costa Rica (Limon) from September 7 to October 12, 2010.

If you would like your quilt(s) to be considered the eligibility and guidelines say each entry is by digital images only. You may submit up to 3 entries. Quilts must be created after 2008. Entries must be a minimum of 36" per side through a maximum 60" per side. Key Dates: July 1, 2010 deadline for entry and July 15, 2010 notification of acceptance.

When you submit your digital image(s), you are required to send: Artist's First Name, Last Name, full address including country, phone number, including country code, and your email address. Submit one overall DIGITAL image and one detail DIGITAL image for each piece of artwork. Send your digital images as a high quality JPEG or TIFF files. Finished image should be 1800 pixels on the longest side. Label each digital image with the name of your artwork title and indicate if detail or full. You must also include an artist's statement (25 words or less) with the piece's title, height x width, in inches, year completed, insurance value, materials and techniques (25 words or less).

Dr. Mazloomi will accept your entry on a CD or send via the internet. She says, "I will NOT ACCEPT entries without the artist name. Believe it or not, I receive many entries with no name attached." The contact information is: Carolyn Mazloomi, 5481 Oldgate Drive, West Chester, OH 45069, email: drmaz4wcq@aol.com.

Art Quilts from Haiti

Patience to Raise the Sun: Art Quilts from Haiti and their Power to Change Women's Lives.

Here is a catalog of art quilts from Haiti based on the recent Bennington Museum exhibit. Curator of Collections Jamie Franklin provides the catalog's essay about Haitian quilts. Nora Nevin writes about the PeaceQuilts project, which features Haitian quilts. The catalog is $19.95 and includes 60 pages.

• Visit the Haitian Peace Quilt website
  
• Read article about the Haitian quilt exhibit
  
• Purchase quilts by Haitian quilters
  

Blessings to our Sistah Quilters in Haiti.

Stories That Cover US - Guild Publishes Own Catalog

When you can, do add yo your library "Stories That Cover Us: Meditations and Fiber Art by the Pacific Northwest African American Quilters" by Lynne K. Varner-Hollie and Deborah Boone. Edited by Gwen Maxwell-Williams. Foreword by Rachel Clark. This book is available on Blurb.com. This is the website that allows you to create your own book!

This coffee-table, gorgeous full-color catalog is 75 pages and includes quilts and short biographical sketches from sistah quilters including: Patricia Batiste-Brown, Deborah Boone, Carol Flanagan-Frank, Iris Franklin, Lynnette Gallon-Harrell, Antoinette Hall, Annie Harper, Antoinette Lewis Bush, Oneda Elizabeth Harris, Cheryl Haskins, Chistine Jordan-Bell, Donna Kimbrough, Paula Maranan, Gwen Maxwell-Williams, Johnnie Miller, Wadiyah Nelson-Shimabukuro, Vera Patterson, Lynne K. Varner-Hollie, Brenetta Ward, and Marilyn Wilson-Hanseling. The hardcover is $45. The softcover is $32. I love that the Pacific Northwest African American Quilters guild are documenting and sharing their work with us! Enjoy!

Sistah Quilter Dr. Michele David, Creole-Creations

For the start of this new year, do take a moment to visit Creole-Creations, the website of Sistah Quilter Dr. Michele David. Her quilts are colorful and vibrant! (Erzulie Dantor II quilt by Michele David) Enjoy!

124th Annual American Historical Association Meetings - Quilts will be discussed

On January 1, 1910 - yes, one hundred years ago - Sistah quilter Harriet Powers passed away in Athens, GA. And, she's still on our minds.

At the 124th Annual American Historical Association Meeting to be held January 7 - 10, 2010 in San Diego, CA, there will be a quilt-related panel discussion titled "Ethnicity and Authenticity: Re-Evaluating Iconic Quilts. This panel is chaired by Patricia Crews, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. The commentator for this two hour discussion will be Vincent A. Brown, Harvard University. On the panel will be:

• Janet Catherine Berlo, Professor of Art History and Visual and Cultural Studies at University of Rochester (NY) will present: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and the Invention of an African-Centered Quilt History.
• Janneken Smucker, University of Delaware will present "Outsourcing Authenticity: Factory-Made Quilts and the Question of Ethnicity." This paper will examine the controversy from the late 1980s/early 1990s when institutions such as the American Folk Art Museum and the Smithsonian Institution licensed some of their historic quilts to be reproduced in non-US factories. (You might remember when Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt was reproduced. You can still find copies sometimes on eBay.)
• Marsha MacDowell, Michigan State University Museum in East Lansing, MI will present "Quilts, Primary Sources, and Authenticity." She examines how "Hidden in Plainview", the book by Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard about quilts made to signal pathways on the Underground Railroad, went from one person's story to this "truth" now being taught to generations of school children. Specifically, the "paper will examine how voices of authority (i.e. museums, historical societies, holders of Ph.D.s, classroom teachers, academic organizations, government officials, in other words, those individuals and organizations that we have been taught to trust) have played a complicit role in endorsing and perpetuating this story as truth." [I would LOVE to also hear this paper in person as I do not believe there were such map quilts. In all my research about African American quilters and quilting based on articles and documents from the 1800s, I've never come across ONE about such quilts... but that's another blog post!]
  

The conference will include other non-quilt topics:

• "Is Google Good for History" - a panel discussion lead by Shawn Martin, Univ of PA, Daniel J. Cohen, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, Paul Duguid, UC Berkeley, and Brandon Badger from Google Books.
  
• "Talking about Teaching American Women's History: Ideas, Innovations, Ideologies" - a panel discussion lead by Steven D. Reschly, Truman State University, Lyz Bly, Case Western Reserve University, Leslie J. Lindenauer, Western Connecticut State University, Margaret A. Lowe, Bridgewater State College, Renee M. Sentilles also of Case Western Reserve, and Tracey M. Weis of Millersville University.
  

Sounds like it will be an interesting conference! Enjoy!