Fabric of Life

‘Contemporary African-American Quilts’ at the Mercer Museum illustrates the art of communicating through stitches.

By: Amy Brummer

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An example of the marriage between African themes and American traditions includes Linda Bodley’s "Musuyide" quilt, above.


   Quilts provide a window into American women’s culture. Though they were made out of necessity, the quilt was a way for a woman to showcase her creativity and skill through the quality of her needlework and choices about color and design.
   While some women could afford to buy fabrics for quilts, it was quite common to use the scraps left over from making clothes or reclaimed fabric. Because of this, quilts are often a testament of a life, transforming individual, everyday pieces into a functional whole.
   By the 1940s, labor-intensive quilting had given way to more affordable, mass-produced bedcovers and blankets. As the sewing machine took the place of hand stitching, only those who could not afford manufactured goods and devotees to the craft were keeping the traditional art alive.
   From Jan. 18-Feb. 23, the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, Pa., will present an exhibit of Contemporary African-American Quilts by the Friendly Quilters of Bucks County. Fifteen of the group’s 27 members will exhibit their work, in addition to offering historical examples from their families and the museum’s collection.
   Rose Miller, a Langhorne, Pa., resident and retired administrator for the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district, founded the group in 1997. Ms. Miller had been quilting since 1981, when she learned the craft from one of her colleagues at the school, but worked at home on her own, feeling her friends might not be particularly interested. In November 1997, Ms. Miller attended a workshop in the Poconos sponsored by Storytellers in Cloth and was amazed by the number of quilters present.
   Returning home, she asked a few friends if they would be interested in learning about quilting and gave them their first lesson that day. The group has grown to incorporate women ranging in age from their 30s to their 70s. Some joined with skills and experience, others with open minds and a desire to learn.

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"Crazy Quilt" by Catie Gertrude Williams.


   "We are inspired by the motto ‘Each one teach one,’" Ms. Miller says. "So many times, one of our quilters will volunteer to do a workshop or a lesson on a new technique or design, and then we take notes and go home and practice what was taught. Most of the time, the lessons expand into a full bed quilt or a wall hanging. Then we have show and tell."
   While stitching techniques and material selection provide a common basis for creating a quilt, the possibilities for designs are endless. There are a wealth of traditional patterns that can be combined or repeated with myriad color choices, allowing a quilter to put her personal mark on a design. But a pattern may be abandoned altogether, in favor of something asymmetrical like a crazy quilt, made of random patches, or a story quilt that creates a picture.
   "The group is so diverse in their creativity," Ms. Miller says. "Some of us are holding on to the traditional way of quilting. We are very geometric. Some of us like diamonds and squares, rectangles. But some of the other quilters, once they have learned the technique, have really gone way beyond tradition, and I would define them as contemporary quilters because many of their quilts are pictorial quilts."
   While Ms. Miller leans toward traditional patterns in her quilts, she has moved them into a contemporary realm by incorporating appliquéd Adinkra symbols into traditional patterns. The symbols, which represent the omnipotence of God, originated in Ghana and were traditionally used to adorn funerary clothing. Both of her quilts in the show use these symbols: Adinkrahene, meaning greatness and leadership; Dwennimmen, the ram’s horn symbolizing humility and strength; and Nkyinkyim, symbolizing dynamism and versatility.
   "I’m thinking about creating the bridge between the traditional patterns and the African symbols," she says. "It all comes together because in your mind it is a creative way of illustrating or depicting everyone as one coming together. It is a marriage of the two cultures."

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"African Royalty Quilt" by Levine Joiner.


   Ms. Miller is not the only artist to use these symbols or African influences in her work. Cassandra Stencil Gunkel, director of education at the museum and curator of the show, also is a member of the group. The Ivyland, Pa., resident believes it is extraordinary to see how these influences have pervaded the group.
   "Their interest in African fabrics, African motifs and African designs is really quite fascinating," Ms. Gunkel says. "They go on shopping trips, and we have show and tell, and they will include fabrics they have purchased. They really are searching out this material to include in their quilts. That would be the thing that really marks this particular group. I see various patterns that are passed around into the group like women wearing geles or headwraps that was a pattern that circulated around the group, or gourds as a quilt design."
   Ms. Gunkel, a graduate of the folklore and folklife program at the University of Pennsylvania, has been devoted to understanding the history of African-American quilting. By studying the quilts of her great-grandmother, Nancy Hughes Riddick, who lived from 1869 to 1967, Ms. Gunkel gained a first hand perspective on how quilts have developed within the culture and the impact of the changing times. In addition to one of her own quilts, Ms. Gunkel will include one of her great-grandmother’s quilts in the Mercer Museum show. Marked by large, splashy floral patterns, the quilt contains material from the upholstery fabric from the shop where her great-grandmother worked.
   "The log cabin (pattern) is associated with Lincoln and Harrison’s political campaigns," Ms. Gunkel says. "It is one of those patterns that perhaps in this country came into use as women were being political when they didn’t have a way to be political. That is when those log-cabin quilts were popular.
   "Usually the traditional way the pattern is rendered is a grid. You have those concentric squares laid out over the face of a quilt. That particular one is what scholars would call an African-American log cabin. The interpretation is that in some African-American quilting there is a tendency toward large-scale designs, which is a hold over from other ideas about textiles and fabric that needed to be read from a distance."
   As her great-grandmother’s work is a reflection of the time in which she lived, Ms. Gunkel’s own quilt in the show gives an example of how forms have changed, yet maintain continuity. Her "Holy Night" quilt is not only a tribute to her daughter, Naomi Ruth, who was born on Christmas, but draws on the lessons she has learned.
   "There is a church with some stars and trees there," Ms. Gunkel says. "The windows of the church are fashioned in the way my great-grandmother did her quilts. She was very big into missionary work in her community in Norfolk (Va.). I did these crosses the way she did her crosses. I’m sort of duplicating or replicating a motif that came from her."

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"Log Cabin Quilt" by Nancy Hughes Riddick.


   That homage comes with the understanding that the quilts have provided the most comprehensive record of her great-grandmother’s life. It was a way to quantify the achievement of her ancestor and use that knowledge as a tool to explain the importance of her great-grandmother’s work.
   Ms. Gunkel recalls how her family wasn’t particularly thrilled when she would hang the old quilts outside to photograph them for archival and study uses.
   "They didn’t know why I was putting those rags out on the line," she says. "They were embarrassed because I was publicizing what their poverty had been, because that is what the quilt stood for. But I said ‘Look, there are stitches there from some young child working with her,’ and it showed what she was passing on. I saw it as a whole other entrée into history, and part of the project was to capture that and let people know that it is an interesting legacy."
   Perhaps that is one reason why quilting waned in popularity. But as time passed and women began embracing the craft for the experience of the handwork and as a vehicle for creative expression, it took on a new purpose.
   For women like Levine Joiner of Warwick, Pa., it has provided an opportunity to tell stories about her history that she had not yet been able to express. Ms. Joiner, who has two quilts in the exhibit, became a part of the group a year and a half ago, after talking to her neighbor, Ms. Miller.
   "My son had Down’s Syndrome," Ms. Joiner says, "and he passed away in 1996. At one point during the grieving process, I had played around with the idea of trying to write a little book or something, and I thought ‘No, I’m not a writer, I can’t do that.’
   "I didn’t even give myself a chance. I just foo-fooed it, and then when Rose mentioned the quilting, I thought I would try that. Then when I finished my first quilt, the structure of ‘Beloved Son’ came to me. I couldn’t wait to finish it so I could start on the quilt for my son, and that gave me an outlet to pour out everything I needed to say about him without saying it in words."

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"Crooked Orange Quilt" by Ms. Bodley.


   The quilt uses pictures of her son that were photocopied onto transfer paper and ironed onto cloth. There is a picture of her son in the center, flanked by a guitar and saxophone, as he was an avid musician. There are also pictures in the corners, and it is bound with a triangle-motif border.
   Her "African Royalty" quilt also is a tribute to her son. The king-size bedcovering uses a central row of Adinkra symbols, each flanked by two rows of spider-web design panels. On the left edge is an African king, on the right, a queen. When her son was misbehaving, she would explain the family hierarchy to him, with his father as king and his mother the queen.
   Other examples of the marriage between African themes and American traditions include Linda Bodley’s "Musuyide" quilt. It is a whole-cloth quilt, made of a hand-painted panel that a friend brought for her from Zimbabwe. Because the paint made it difficult to stitch, the Yardley, Pa., resident used an old-fashioned technique of hand tying it, pulling threads through the layers to secure them.
   Some quilters are content using traditional patterns, but that doesn’t mean they are any less unique or not tied to their personal history. Doylestown resident Pam Dashiell’s "Waiting to Inhale" quilt is a 42-panel sampler that is virtually an encyclopedia of the many quilt patterns that have been passed down over generations. Ms. Dashiell, an active quilter since retiring last year, has examples such as sailboat, regal star, courthouse steps, drunkard’s path, Dresden plate, grandmother’s fan, the farmer’s daughter and flying geese, to name a few. Deep purple, apricot and green are some of her family’s favorite colors, and she bound them to her exploration of classic forms.
   "I am in awe of the quilters," she says. "I am scared of them, because they are awesome women, and when they said ‘Museum,’ I said, ‘Not me.’ But it is a wonderful way of communicating with stitches, and there is so much you can give. I just feel that one day I am going to leave a wonderful legacy to my family and friends, my love to them."
Renewing Traditions: Contemporary African-American Quilts will be on view at the Mercer Museum, Elkins Gallery, Pine and Ashland streets, Doylestown, Pa., Jan. 18-Feb. 23. Hours: Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-4:45 p.m., Sun. noon-4:45 p.m. Admission costs $6, $5.50 seniors, $2.50 children, members free. For information, call (215) 345-0210. On the Web: www.mercermuseum.org