Greetings You Mavens of Cloth,
Welcome back to BLOCK! There are some wonderful things to share this week:
Standing in solidarity next to Paiute artist and activist, Fawn Douglas, at the Women's March, Las Vegas. See Douglas give her remarks, here.
First, I'm delighted to announce that an article of mine featuring quilter Chawne Kimber, has been published in The Modern Quilt Guild's new publication, Modern Monthly! For those of you not already familiar with Chawne (pronounced, Sean), she's a force in modern quilting, who's identity politics quilts and precision piece work are profoundly relevant, calculated, and inspiring works of art.
This past week also marked a profound moment in U.S. history, with the largest peace protest ever staged in support of women's rights, i.e. human rights. The event, as you well know, took place the day after the Presidential inauguration, and joined together millions of people across America (and the wider-world).
I couldn't have more proud to have attended the sister-event in Las Vegas, to have marched along side dear friends, and to have stood in solidarity next to people like the Paiute artist and activist, Fawn Douglas. I found my faith in America renewed by the experience, and gained greater clarity of that which divides us as a nation. Not surprisingly, these ideas came to me as the old epigram about weaving cloth:
Like warp and weft, two distinct types of thread are weaving the American cloth at present. And while the needs, hopes, and wants of one thread of opinion has always laid atop the other, throughout each moment in American politics, we have managed to find common ground where they intersect, since our nation was first founded. What was clarified for me last Saturday however, is that the fight we are embarking on from this point forward, with the election of new POTUS and his toxic team of cabinet appointments, with the infiltration of fake news (especially where Russia is concerned), with the normalization of rape culture (#monumentquilt), and so on - is that we are now in a battle over which threads of opinion (and therefore which set of values), wins the right to be the warp.
The warp, after all, is the yarn held under high tension. It's unyielding and reliable, the structure upon which the weft freely floats across, and weaves itself throughout. Progress is made by both types, no doubt. But what the Women's March demanded, and what it will continue to demand, is that the common threads of equality, freedom, justice, and so on, are the warp upon which we weave our own liberty.
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Quilts in Honor of Lady Liberty:
Lady Liberty, by Beck Hortense, 1987. Made in Topeka, Kansas. Collection of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum.
Image from the Library of Congress digital archive. Caption reads: Famous historical quilt. Washington, D.C., Aug. 17. Joseph's coat of many colors had nothing on this unique quilt which is now being completed by Mrs. Ethel Sampson of Evanston, Ill., after six years of collecting. Parts of wearing apparel from President Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosevelt, members of the Cabinet, diplomats and notables from all over. From Hollywood Bing Crosby sent a tie while Mae West and Shirley Temple contributed parts of dresses...August 17, 1937.
Celebrating the creative contribution of America's immigrants: Former tailor, Carl Klewicke, immigrated to America in the early part of the 20th century and spent twenty years producing this quilt; a treasure among the collection of the American Folk Art Museum included in their traveling exhibit, Self Taught Genius. The museum's online exhibit page tells the story of the Original Design Quilt, c. 1907, and why Klewicke created this remarkable piece: As recounted in the March 18, 1879 edition of the Corning (NY) Journal: "On the evening of March 1st, an infant girl about three months old, was left on the door step at the house of Carl Klewicke...The child was well dressed, and an extra pair of shoes was in the bundle of clothing left with it. Mr. and Mrs. Klewicke, having no children, adopted the foundling, and are already quite proud as well as happy in its possession." It is this adopted daughter for whom the extraordinary quilt was made.
Ship of State, by the Peet sisters (Cordelia Peet, Jane Hull, Helen Lind, and Lois Sage), 1908-09. Probably made in Kent County, Michigan, United States. Collection of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum.
Modern Monthly: Feature Article!
Check it out! Read my feature article on the amazing Chawne Kimber, in the MQG's new Modern Monthly!
'Enlighten the Cloth' Summer Workshop @ Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
Head's up: Summer quilt workshop at Haystack! A West-African Appliqued Experience, with WILLIAM ADJÉTÉ WILSON. Summer session #3: July 16-28. Find out more, here.
Thanks for visiting BLOCK!