Beginning in February 2007 and continuing throughout the year, the Old State House Museum’s renowned collection of African American quilts will be on display, although not all at one time. The quilts will be rotated to minimize the damage caused by exposure to light.
While quilt designs, fabrics, colors, and methodologies have fascinated curators and educators for quite some time, a more in-depth look at the quilt makers themselves was needed to mount a comprehensive exhibition of these special bedcovers. Quilts cannot, and should not, be viewed as isolated artifacts, divorced from the lives of their makers. Instead, it is only when there is an understanding of the relationship between quilt makers and their quilts that an exhibition is complete. Fortunately, most of the black Arkansans cited in this exhibition are clearly identified by name and by the town in which they lived.
These Arkansas quilters lived in rural areas south of Little Rock to the Louisiana border, and southwest to the Texas border. Towns such as Calion, DeQueen, Magnolia, Camden, Emerson and Dodderidge were homes to black quilt makers from around 1890 to the present. While utilitarian cotton scrap quilts are common, the quilt making is enormously diverse. Even when two quilters use the same design, their individual creative impulses give the two quilts very different appearances. Black Arkansans fashioned all types of string quilts and strip quilts and followed patterns such as the Nine-patch, Log Cabin, Lazy Gal, Star of Bethlehem, Arkansas Snowflake, Pine Cone, Flower Garden, Flyfoot, and Wedding Ring.
A unique feature of this quilt exhibit is the large number of Family Quilts. Grandmother, mother, and daughter quilts, sister quilts, cousin quilts, and aunt and niece quilts are all present in the exhibit. In rural Arkansas, quilt making was a family endeavor, involving many family members with different levels of quilt making experience. The activity served as a practical yet social past-time, passing skills and techniques from mothers to children and grandchildren, and entertaining friends and acquaintances. Quilts were made as warm bedcovers to be used by the family or to be given as gifts, but always for personal expression. The quilts in this exhibition illustrate that this small group of black Arkansans were indeed some of the most prolific quilters in the state.
Accompanying the quilts are paintings by black folk artist Lee Nora Parlor. For a more extensive overview of Ms. Parlor’s work, view our special Online Exclusive exhibit: Trying to Get Home.
Next: "As Long as Life Shall Last": The Legacy of Arkansas Women »
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