Sources Used in Exhibit:

Threads of Scholarship: History and Storytelling in African American Quilts

 
Note: Asterisk signifies publications displayed in the exhibit or owned by the University at Albany Libraries. These items were purchased with the support of "The Frank and Dorothy Pogue Endowed Library Fund for African American Studies".

Benberry, Cuesta. Always There: The African American Presence in American Quilts. Louisville: The Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc., 1992.

----------, Patchwork of Pieces: An Anthology of Early Quilt Stories, 1845-1940 Paducah: Collector Books, 1993.

*----------, A Piece of My Soul: Quilts by Black Arkansans. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000.

*Callahan, Nancy.The Freedom Quilting Bee. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987.

Christopher, Robin and David Knight. The Underground Railroad: Connections to Freedom and Science. Washington, D.C.: NASA, 1999.

Dobard, Raymond G. "Frugal and Fashionable." Connnecting Stitches: Quilts in Illinois Life : papers from the symposium held at the Illinois State Museum, Springfield, January 1994 and at the Illinois Art Gallery, Chicago, July 9, 1994. Eds. Janice Tauer Wass and Cheryl Kennedy. Springfield, Ill.: The Museum, 1995.

*---------- and Jacqueline Tobin. Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts & the Underground Railroad. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

----------, Subject-matter in the Work of K�the Kollwitz : An Investigation of Death Motifs in Relation to Traditional Iconographic Patterns. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University, 1975.

Ferris, William. Afro-American Folk Art and Crafts. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1983.

Freeman, Roland L., The Arabbers of Baltimore. Centreville, Md.: Tidewater Publishers, 1989.

*----------, A Communion of the Spirits African-American Quilters, Preservers, & Their Stories. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, Oct. 1996.

*----------, Mule Train Journal A Journey of Hope Remembered. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1998.

*----------, Margaret Walker's "For My People" A Tribute. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992.

----------, "Quilts from the Mississippi heartland." American Visions 1:3 (1986): 28-32.

----------, Roland L. Freeman, a Baltimore portfolio, 1968-1979 : a Black photographer looks at his hometown. Catonsville, Md.: University of Maryland Baltimore County Library, 1979.

----------, Something to keep you warm: the Roland Freeman Collection of Black American quilts from the Mississippi Heartland : an exhibition at the Mississippi State Historical Museum, a division of the Department of Archives and History, June 14-August 9, 1981. Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives & History, 1981.

----------, Southern Roads - City Pavements Photographs of Black Americans. New York: International Center of Photography, 1981.

Fry, Gladys-Marie. Broken Star: Post-Civil War Quilts Made by Black Women. Dallas Museum of African-American Life and Culture, 1986.

----------, Dolls! by African-American artists: Kimberly Camp, Julee Dickerson, Annie Dickerson, Joyce Scott, Elizabeth Scott, Francine Haskins. Winston-Salem, NC: Diggs Gallery, Winston-Salem State University, 1992.

*----------, Night riders in Black folk history. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.

* ----------, Stitched From the Soul : Slave Quilts From the Ante-Bellum South. New York: Dutton Studio Books : in association with the Museum of American Folk Art, 1990.

* ----------, The System of Psychological Control. Negro American Literature Forum (Autumn 1969): 72.

* ----------, and Leone, Mark P. "III - Hybrid Material Forms - Conjuring in the Big House Kitchen: Art Interpretation of African American Belief Systems Based on the Uses of Archaeology and Folklore," The Journal of American folklore. 112:445 (1999): 372-404.

Gross, Joyce and others. 20th-Century Quilts, 1900-1970 Women Make Their Mark. Paducah: Collector Books, 1998.

*Grudin, Eva Ungar. Stitching Memories: African American Story Quilts. Williamstown, Massachusetts: Williams College Museum of Art, 1989.

Leone, Mark P. and Gladys-Marie Fry. "III - Hybrid Material Forms - Conjuring in the Big House Kitchen: Art Interpretation of African American Belief Systems Based on the Uses of Archaeology and Folklore," The Journal of American folklore. 112:445 (1999): 372-404.

Leon, Eli. "African Influence on American Block-style Quilts." African Impact on the Material Culture of the Americas : a Conference Presented by Diggs Gallery at Winston-Salem State University, Old Salem, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, May 30-June 2, 1996. Winston-Salem, North Carolina: Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, 1998. 1-18.

----------, "African Transformations in Afro-American Whole-quilt Patterns." Traditions in Cloth: Afro-American Quilts/West African Textiles . Los Angeles: California: Afro-American Museum, 1986. 16-21.

*----------, Arbie Williams Transforms the Britches Quilt. California: Regents of the University of California and the Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery, UCSC, 1993.

----------, "Cross-strip Patterning in African Textiles and African-American Quilts."Surface Design Journal 15:1, 6-8, 38.

----------, "Cut It Down the Middle and Send It to the Other Side." Threads 19 (1988): 70-75.

----------, "Great feelings: the mother/daughter connection in African-American quiltmaking." Textile Fibre Forum. Mittagong, Australia: The Australian Forum for Textile Arts 8:26, 1989. 9-11.

* -----------, Models in the Mind: African Prototypes in American Patchwork: January 15-March 29, 1992. Winston-Salem, N.C.: Diggs Gallery: Winston-Salem State University, 1992.

----------, "Models in the Mind: African Influences on American Quilts." Piecework 5:4 (July-August 1997): 34-38.

* ----------, and Sharon Risedorph. No Two Alike :African-American Improvisations on a Traditional Patchwork Pattern. Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina State Museum, 1998.

*----------, Showing Up: Maximum-contrast African-American Quilts. Richmond, CA : Richmond Art Center, 1996.

* ----------, Something Else to See: Improvisational Bordering Styles in African-American Quilts. Amherst, Mass.: University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1997.

------------, "Wrapping Home Around Me: How Patchwork Quilt Became a Medium for the Expression of African Values." Rambling on My Mind : Black Folk Art of the Southwest. Dallas, Tex: Museum of African-American Life and Culture, 1987. 18-33.

------------, and Hanna Regev. Quilts From the 'Hood: East Bay African American Improvisational Quilts, a Teacher's Companion. Oakland, CA: The African American Museum & Library at Oakland, 1997.

-----------, Who'd a Thought It: Improvisation in African-American Quiltmaking: December 31, 1987 to February 28, 1988. San Francisco, Calif.: San Francisco Craft & Folk Art Museum, 1990.

-----------, "The Francis Sheppard Fours Quilt." A Common Thread: Fiber Art From Nevada, 1991. Las Vegas: A Common Thread, 1991. 3-4.

-----------, "'Wrapping Home around Me': How the Patchwork Quilt Became a Medium for the Expression of African Values." Rambling on My Mind: Black Folk Art of the Southwest. Dallas: Museum of African American Life and Culture, 1987. 18-33.

MacDowell, Marsha L., editor. African American Quiltmaking in Michigan. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press in collaboration with the Michigan State University Museum, 1997.

Macneal, Patricia M. and others. Quilts from Appalachia Exhibition Catalogue. University Park: Palmer Museum of Art, 1988.

Marston, Gwen and others. Mary Schafer & Her Quilts. East Lansing: Michigan State University Museum, 1990.

*Mazloomi, Carolyn, and others. Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 1998.

Pershing, Linda. The Ribbon around the Pentagon : Peace by Piecemakers. Knoxville: American Folklore Society, University of Tennessee Press, 1996.

Picton, John and John Mack. African Textiles. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1989.

*Tobin, Jacqueline and Raymond G. Dobard. Hidden in Plain View: the Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2000.

Wahlman, Maude S. African American Quilters. Chicago, IL: Rosenthal Art Slides, Inc., 1984.

----------, Signs & Symbols African Images in African-American Quilts. East Rutherford: Studio Books, July 1993.

---------- and Peabody, Rebecca. Primitivism and the Post-colonial Aesthetic: the Creative Journey of a Belizian Artist, 1999.

----------, A Profile of Cultures: an Exhibition of African Textiles and Clothing Greensboro, N.C.: The Gallery, 198u.

Juvenile Books

Flournoy, Valerie. The Patchwork Quilt. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1985.

Hopkinson, Deborah. Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

Exhibits

Amish and African American Quilts. Intercourse, PA: People's Place Quilt Museum, 2000.

Mazloomi, Carolyn and David Revere McFadden, co-curators. Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary Quilts by African American Artists. Washington, D.C.: Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian. October 2000- January 2001.

Video

Recycled, Reseen: Folk Art from the Global Scrap Heap. Videorecording. Santa Fe, NM: Museum of International Folk Art, Crystal Productions, dist., 1997.

Quilters and Quilts: Larger posters

Alice Neal
Mary Bright Commemorative Quilt
From “Stitching Memories: African-American Story Quilts.  Williams College Museum of Art, 1989.

Faith Ringgold
Church Picnic, 1988.
Acrylic on canvas, fabric border (Original 74 x 69) 
The High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Faith Ringgold
Tar Beach, 1988
Part I from the Woman on a Bridge series.

“My women,” proclaimed Ringgold about the Women on a Bridge series, “are actually flying; they are just free, totally. They take their liberation by confronting this huge masculine icon—the bridge.”
“Ringgold’s vehicle is the story quilt—a traditional American craft associated with women’s communal work that also has roots in African culture. She originally collaborated on the quilt motif with her mother, a dressmaker and fashion designer in Harlem. That Ringgold’s great-great-great-grandmother was a Southern slave who made quilts for plantation owners suggests a further, perhaps deeper, connection between her art and her family history.

During the late 1960s and the 1970s Faith Ringgold played an instrumental role in the organization of protests and actions against museums that had neglected the work of women and people of color. Her paintings from this period are overtly political, and present an angry, critical reappraisal of the American dream glimpsed through the filter of race and gender relations.”

Rosie Lee Tompkins
String Quilt
From “No Two Alike: African American Improvisational Quilts”.  High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, 1996.

 “Deeply religious, Tompkins feels that she is God’s instrument.  Her quilts are designed by Him; she’s grateful to have found this uplifting way of worshipping.” from E. Leon’s book on improv borders, p. 39

Gussie Wells [1901-1994]

Compound Strip
From “Traditions in Cloth: Afro-American Quilts/West African Textiles”.  California Afro-American Museum, 1986.

Arbie Williams
Papaloo
From “Festival of American Folklife, Smithsonian Institution, 1994.

“Britches quilts are assembled from the usable parts of worn-out pants…Papaloos are made chiefly from a single pair of oversized men’s pants…For Williams, the Britches quilt is an exceptional vehicle for improvisation.”  From E. Leon’s Arbie Williams Transforms the Britches Quilt, 1993.

Mattie Pickett and Willia Ette Graham, 1987.
Texas Star
Courtesy of the collection of Eli Leon and OMCA “Let it Shine Poster” NY State Museum poster from NY State Museum Exhibit of Eli Leon Quilt Collection.  (Donated to Deborah LaFond by Eli Leon and the NY State Library after exhibition of Eli Leon Collection of Quilts at the NY State Museum, January 24 – March 23, 2004).

Paul Goodnight
Links and Lineage
Painting was commissioned by the Middlesex County Chapter of The Links, Inc.  The Links is a service organization whose members are primarily African American women. Symbolizes transmission of culture and possibly the matrilineal heritage of quilting.

Charles Cater
Triangle Strip
From “Made by Men: African American Traditional Quilts”.  Art Gallery at University of Maryland at College Park, 1996.

Poster images from calendar based on Exhibit - Amish Quilts and African American Quilts: Classics from Two Traditions

The People’s Place Quilt Museum, Lancaster, PA. 2000. Calendar c Good Books.

Medallion,1991
Willia Ette Graham

Star Wheel, 1988
Pieced by Arbie Williams and Quilted by Irene Bankhead
Oakland, California   

String, 1987
Irene Bankhead
Oakland, CA 

Corner Chimney Log Cabin
Anonymous,
African American environs of Tyler, Texas  

Variations on a Theme, c. 1940
Anonymous, Johnson County, Indiana

Sunflower, 1940
Beauty Vaughn and her mother, Pearl Nunley
Paraloma, Arkansas

Three Sixes, 1986
Pieced by Rosie Lee Tompkins and Quilted by Willia Ette Graham, Richmond/Oakland, CA

Improvisational Strip, 19th century
Anonymous

Half Squares, Put Together, 1988
Rosie Lee Tompkins

Double Wedding Ring, 1940  
Emma Hall, Sweet Home Arkansas

Medallion, 1985 
Pieced by Gussie Wells and Quilted by Irene Bankhead, Oakland, CA 

Checkerboard, c. 1940
Mary Lue Brown, Dallas, Texas

 

List of Books & Materials in Exhibit Cases, 2001

Communion of Spirits: African American Quilters, Preservers, and their Stories.
by  Roland L. Freeman.
Rutledge Hill Press, 1996

African Textiles and Decorative Arts
by Roy Sieber
New York, Museum of Modern Art; distributed by New York
Graphic Society, Greenwich, Conn. [1972]
OVER / (*) NK 8887 S53                          

Stitching Memories : African-American Story Quilts
Eva Ungar Grudin
Williamstown, Mass.: Williams College Museum of Art, 1990
NK 9112 G78 1990            

 

Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African-American Quilts
Carolyn Mazloomi ; preface by Faith Ringgold ; foreword by Cuesta Benberry.
New York : Clarkson Potter/Publishers, c1998
 NK 9112 M37 1998               

 

African American Quiltmaking in Michigan
by Marsha MacDowell, editor.
East Lansing, MI : Michigan State University Press, 1997
OVER / (*) NK 9112 A36 1997        

 

Stitched from the Soul: Slave Quilts from the ante-bellum South 
by Gladys-Marie Fry
New York: Dutton Studio Books: in association with
The  Museum of American Folk Art, 1990
OVER / (*) NK 9112 F79 1990    

 

Rosie Lee Tompkins
by Lawrence Rinder
[Berkeley, Calif.]: Berkeley Art Museum, 1997

 

Mbuti Design: Paintings by Pygmy Women of the Ituri Forest
By Georges Meurant and Robert Farris Thompson.
New York, N.Y. : Thames and Hudson, 1995
OVER / (*) NK 9505.2 Z282 T366 1995                                       

Contemporary African Arts
by  Maude Wahlman, Anthropologist and Scholar on African American Quilts
Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1974
ULIB       NX 587 W34                                   

 

Dancing at the Louvre: Faith Ringgold's French Collection and Other Story Quilts
by Dan Cameron ... [et al.] 
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1998
 ULIB       NK 9198 R56 A4 1998       

 

The Freedom Quilting Bee
by Nancy Callahan
Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1987
ULIB NK 9112 C34 1987
      

Arbie Williams Transforms the Britches Quilt
by  Eli Leon
Exhibition at Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery.
University of California at Santa Cruz.  November 2- December 10, 1993.
 

Models in the Mind: African Prototypes in American Patchwork
by Eli Leon
Diggs Gallery and the Winston-Salem State University.  Exhibit January 15 - March 29, 1992 
 

No Two Alike: African-American Improvisations on a Traditional Patchwork Pattern,
By Eli Leon
South Carolina State Museum.   Exhibit  October 24- March 28, 1999.

A Shining Thread of Hope: the History of Black Women in America
by Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson
New York: Broadway Books, 1998
E 185.86 H68 1998  

 

Showing Up  Maximum-Contrast African-American Quilts
 Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA Exhibit January 10- March 23 1996

 

Something Else to See: The Improvisational Bordering Styles in African American Quilts
University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  Feb. 1-March 15 and April 13-June 7, 1997.

 

Recycled,  Reseen: Videorecording
Folk Art  from the Global Scrap Heap.  An Exhibition organized by the Museum of International

 

Stitched from the Soul: Slave Quilts from the Ante-bellum
By Gladys Marie-Fry
 OVER / (*) NK 9112 F79 1990  

             
Spirits of the Cloth
By Carolyn Mazloomi

Quilts from the Mississippi Heartland, 1986

 

Hidden in Plain View:  The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad.  Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard.

Recycled,  Reseen: Videorecording
Folk Art  from the Global Scrap Heap.  An Exhibition organized by the Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe. Project Directors, Charlene Cerny and Suzanne K. Seriff, Ph.D.

 

Margaret Walker's "For my people" : a tribute
Photographs by Roland L. Freeman.
Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, c1992.
OVER / (*) PS 3545 A517 F636 1992    

Something to Keep You Warm
By Roland Freeman, 1981.
National Endowments for the Arts (Front cover, Five Colored Girls)

 

Double stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers & Daughters
Edited by Patricia Bell-Scott [and others]. University Library / PS 509 M6 D6 1991

Compiled by Gerald Burke and Deborah M. LaFond University at Albany May 1, 2001


For further information, e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]


Page created by Gerald Burke and Deborah LaFond, University Libraries, University at Albany. Last update May 3, 2001.