{"id":4561,"date":"2018-11-09T13:55:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T13:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=4561"},"modified":"2018-11-09T13:55:40","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T13:55:40","slug":"the-quilting-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=4561","title":{"rendered":"The Quilting Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Quilting Tradition <\/span><\/h1>\n
By Shantay Robinson <\/span><\/pre>\n
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Harriet Powers Bible Quilt<\/p><\/div>\n
Harriet Powers was once a slave in rural Georgia, but her intricate quilts make her a celebrated artist today. Her story quilts depict biblical tales and local histories. She began exhibiting them in 1886 at the Cotton States and International Expo. Now her quilts, <\/span>Bible Quilt,<\/span><\/i> is at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and <\/span>Pictorial Quilt<\/span><\/i> is at Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Existing as a slave, bearing at least nine children and being subject to a racist and sexist society, Powers seems to have remained steadfast in her faith. The function of her quilts falls in line with story quilts of contemporary artists who are using this medium to express their own steadfastness in what they believe to be significant. Contemporary artistic quilts by black women artists allow us an understanding of those things that are important to the artists like sisterhood, female empowerment, and black feminine beauty. <\/span><\/p>\n
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Faith Ringgold, Tar beach<\/p><\/div>\n
In \u201cThe Freedom to Say What She Pleases: A Conversation with Faith Ringgold\u201d Melody Graulich and Mara Witzling inform us that \u201cAll the narrators of Ringgold\u2019s quilts are African-American women who speak with authority in their own voices.\u201d A story quilt depicting a matriarch restaurateur named Aunt Jemima in <\/span>Who\u2019s Afraid of Aunt Jemima<\/span><\/i>, speaks from a black feminist perspective, but Ringgold has also produced other politically charged story quilts like <\/span>Flag Story Quilt<\/span><\/i> where she uses text and African textiles that force us to reckon with the multi-ethnic fabric of the USA. The black feminist that Ringgold is, she, at one time, painted images based in black feminist sensibilities with oil paint on canvas. But as the Harlem resident began to speak a language that her community could understand, she became formidable. The book <\/span>Tar Beach <\/span><\/i>and the quilt <\/span>Tar Beach 2, <\/span><\/i>might be the works for which Ringgold is best known. And it is her relatability to her community and its people through quilting as a medium that have made her so well-known. <\/span><\/p>\n
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In \u201cIn Search of a Discourse and Critique\/s that Center the Art of Black Women Artists,\u201d Freida Tesfagiorgis states, \u201cThat Ringgold dares, as many African-American artists do, to retain or reclaim aesthetic values of African-American traditions, knowing that such qualities will be rejected and\/or marginalized by the dominant art establishment, is the most immanent indication of her self-determination.\u201d She subverts the Western art historical canon by asserting womanly \u201clow\u201d arts into masculine \u201chigh\u201d art spaces. Quilting has also traditionally been viewed as a folk-art tradition of self-taught artists. Story quilts by Ringgold have been challenged by cultural norms for their medium, but they have endured because of their artistic integrity. She truly creates masterpieces that require great artistic and technical skill, as well as cognitive ability. Not only are they functional in their ability to relay narratives, they are aesthetically beautiful. Regarded more as a skill than an artistic talent, artists like Ringgold have undermined this notion by thrusting quilting into the mainstream Western art canon. Quilting artists blurry the line between \u201chigh\u201d art and \u201clow\u201d art, and allow for artists who have been habitually marginalized to participate in the contemporary Western art world. <\/span><\/p>\n