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Roy Mitchell Jr. - Photo Q.S.O.S. |
While visiting the famed Eso Won bookstore in Los Angeles, I was arrested upon seeing one of the most magnificent quilts I've ever seen .... one about 8 or 9 feet tall of a Moor warrior. You've likely seen the poster that inspired the quilt. You gotta understand - this magnificent Moor warrior looked as if he would step off the fabric and defend his family! The Moor is standing on fabric steps and, honestly, you can imagine him lifting his robes so his sandal feet don't trip.
If you are in the Cleveland area, be sure to see the exhibit, "Inspirations, Visions & Traditions: 2010 Quilt and Doll Show," by the African American Quilt & Doll Guild of Warrensville Heights, Ohio October 15 - 16, 2010. Friday's event includes a lecture by wearable arts designer Rachel Clark and a fashion show. There is an admission charge.
I'm excited to announce a new book - all about you! 1.6 Million African American Quilters is a handy, eye-opening booklet about today's Black quiltmakers:
Are you familiar with the quilts of John Sims? In this photo from 2005, he and a few Amish quilters are sewing on the piece "Civil Pi Movement." John Sims specializes in math-based quilts. In 2008, he exhibited 13 quilts in the show Square Roots: A Quilted Manifesto. Read an interview with him by noted art curator A. M. Weaver on the BOMBlog. Enjoy!
I'm always amazed to learn about the works of other quilters! On exhibit August 12 - 28, 2010 in Baltimore, Maryland is "Henry Holmes: Fabric of Love - Imaginations of Portrait and Traditional Quilts." If you are nearby, visit the Creative Alliance at the Patterson. There are 24 pieces in the show. According to the promo materials:Henry Holmes’ quilts tell stories that are at once deeply personal and speak broadly to the African American experience. Dorothy Dandridge is self-possessed and flirtatious as she smiles at you over her bare shoulder. Elsewhere, a group of plantation workers appear not as broken figures from a distant past, as the embodiment of urban cool.Henry Holmes lives in Baltimore, but is a native of Harlem. If you can not visit the exhibit, take a moment to visit his website at HenrysArts.weebly.com or click here to see a quick 30 second video of his quilts on YouTube. Enjoy!
Thanks to Gwen for introducing me to quilts of Chicago artist Ken Ellis. Have you seen his quilts? Ellis has been quilting for more than 20 years. According to the ChicagoReader,"Ellis learned to sew from his father, a maintenance engineer, while growing up on the Gold Coast, and he's always painted. He's also a big history buff. But it wasn't until after stints at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, the School of the Art Institute, and Columbia College that he combined the three interests. "I got fed up with school and went to work in a punk bar," he says. The bar was the famous La Mere Vipere, where he met his ex-wife, Marilyn. She turned him on to fabric dye, which she used to color T-shirts and pillows. The dye was brighter and more durable than oil paint, "which is on a layer of gesso and can crack and peel off," says Ellis. "My dye is part of the fabric and will be there as long as the fabric is there."You can see more of Mr. Ellis' quilts at the Anatomically Correct website. Click here to see quilts from his "Sewing the Seeds" exhibit. So - what do you think of his quilt!? Enjoy!
Have you visited Wendel George Brown's website? This Newport News, VA native is also a quilter, painter, and sculptor.
Congratulations to Roland Freeman, one of 12 recipients of the National Endowment of the Arts - National Heritage Fellowships. According to the NEA:
"Roland Freeman, recommended as the Bess Lomax Hawes Award recipient, was inspired by the socially conscious Depression-era photography of Gordon Parks and Roy DeCarava as well as the Farm Security Administration photographers. At age 14, he met the author/folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, who also greatly influenced his life's work. A native of Baltimore, he began photographing in the DC area in the late 1960s. In 1968, he participated in and documented the Poor People's Campaign and the Mule Train trip from Marks, MS, to the nation's capital. Even while working as a stringer for Time and Magnum Photos, including coverage as a White House photographer, his real passion throughout his career has been the documentation of Southern folk culture."
Freeman is a pillar in preserving African American quilt and quilting history! He has documented sistah and brother quilters since his landmark Something to Keep You Warm: The Roland Freeman Collection of Black American Quilts from the Mississippi Heartland (1981). Raise your hand if you're one of the many quilters Roland Freeman photographed over a twenty year period and captured in the must-have book and must-see exhibit A Communion of the Spirits: African American Quilters, Preservers, and Their Stories. Freeman photographed quilters in more than 38 US states. Friends thought I was crazy when I invited Mr. Freeman to stay at my home in Kansas City when he made his cross-country trip to capture quilters in the Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska area.... I had never met him, but was amazed by his National Geographic photographs. A collection of Mr. Freeman's quilts are at the Smith Robertson Museum in Jackson, MS. Blessings to Roland Freeman for the NEA honor! (Photo: Self-portrait of Roland L. Freeman with nine of his quilts.)
