Updates and News

Good afternoon everyone!

It is a brisk wintery day here, but the sun is shining and the newest threat of snow says we shouldn't see the white stuff until Monday. I wanted to share a few news items and remind everyone about upcoming events.

Dr. Gaither was scheduled to give a talk this coming Sunday (14 February) at the Annapolis Barnes and Noble at 2 p.m., however due to the large amounts of snow everywhere and difficulty traveling around the area, the talk has been postponed. I will share information on a new date and time once it is determined. Her family story quilt will hopefully be on display at the store at some point in the next week. Until then, several gicle prints of her work are in the front window as part of an African American display.

As the Community Threads exhibition comes to an end in Hartford, CT, Dr. Gaither will be traveling up to Hartford to bring the quilts back as well as to give an artist talk at the end of the exhibition. A public artist talk is tentatively scheduled for the evening of Tuesday, 23 February. Final details are being sorted out now and will be posted here soon.

Come and join Dr. Gaither for a morning of artmaking at the LaMond-Riggs Public Library in Washington, DC for a quilting workshop. This workshop is brought to you by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture with co-sponsors Banneker-Douglass Museum and the DC Public Library. The program will be held on Saturday, 27 February 2010 from 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. The program is free of charge and registration is not required. Event specifics can be found in the upcoming events calendar to the right of this post.

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore will display J2WH beginning 3 March 2010 through 6 June 2010. An artist talk will be scheduled during the exhibition with the inclusion of at least one more quilt in the My American Series in April for the National Art Education Association Conference occurring in Baltimore.

Finally, I am pleased to announce that the Black Watermen of the Chesapeake quilt will be coming back to Maryland and going on display at the Banneker-Douglass Museum on 20 March 2010. As part of the museum's celebration of Maryland Day 2010 hosted by the Four Rivers Heritage Area, the museum will offer a film and panel discussion on the black watermen with the quilt hung in the museum's lobby. The quilt will only be on display during this event, so make sure you come by and check it out.

Those are the updates as I have them. More details and updates soon!

My American Series - Trails Tracks Tarmac (aka The Community Quilt)

Trails Tracks Tarmac (TTT) is the second quilt in the My American Series. Formally titled Trails Tracks Tarmac: Lives of African Americans in the History and Culture of Northern Anne Arundel County Maryland from 1850 to the Present, this quilt is actually part of two series. The second series is a group of over 25 small (3 square feet) quilts inspired by TTT. These smaller quilts came about during the creation of TTT. I am getting ahead of myself. As the song says, let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

TTT is the culmination of several individual's desires to document African American history of Northern Anne Arundel County. For those who are not from Maryland, this area comprises the distance between Baltimore and Annapolis. Begun as a wish by Ms. Irene Hebron, a historian at Dr. Gaither's church, a group of individuals including Dr. Gaither and Ted and Betty Mack began the process of researching and documenting history at their church. The effort quickly grew to include other churches in the area, picking up more and more interested individuals and groups as they went. The group eventually consolidated into a 501(c)3 organization called Northern Arundel Cultural Preservation Society, Inc. (NACPS).

As the group worked, they built up a treasure trove of information, oral history interviews, and objects. Dr. Gaither incorporated the research into an idea for a quilt - TTT which is also known as the Community Quilt. I have referenced this quilt and shown several images from it in past postings. Dr. Gaither asked the community to come together and provide her with people, places, and events to add to the quilt. This was the beginning to what would become her signature community quilting process. As people came to her with information, several people stepped forward wanting to get involved and be a part of the quilting process. What resulted was a massive group of quilters who would get together to help work on TTT.

During the quilting process, Dr. Gaither came to a point where she had more content than she could possibly fit onto the quilt. As a solution to this dilemma, she invited the quilters to design and create their own quilts using this content. The result was a series of 25 smaller quilts in varying designs and styles on topics including small enclave communities, sports heroes and teams, schools, family trees, and many others.

Along the way, NACPS began working with staff members of the Banneker-Douglass Museum and eventually put together an exhibition of all the research and objects they had collected. The exhibition also included the TTT quilt and the 25 smaller quilts. The resulting exhibition took over every temporary exhibition space at the museum and was a smashing success. The exhibition ran at BDM from November 2006 through January 2008 before moving on to travel throughout the state of Maryland. The exhibit is now on display at the Bates Legacy Center in Annapolis.

Now for a little description of the quilt itself. TTT is unlike most of the quilts in the My American Series in that it is a crazy quilt. A crazy quilt is one that does not follow a prescribed structure/design. The quilt centers around the placement of three major railroads which run through the county - Baltimore & Ohio (now the Chessie System), Baltimore & Annapolis Electric, and the Baltimore & Potomac (now Amtrak). Throughout this space are several churches and early African American elementary schools. Also included is Bates High School, the only high school for African Americans in Anne Arundel County from 1933-1966. The quilt takes its name from these two components as well as from BWI airport which is located in the heart of this area. The crossroads, or trails, place family enclaves within the county, connecting historical figures and families within current residents. Tracks is for the railroads and tarmac for the tarmac at the airport.

TTT is the first quilt to appear with the signature My American Series quilt border. The quilt also share the other common feature of the series pieces - enormous size. TTT is 110 inches long and 98 inches wide. Translated into feet, that is 10 feet 2 inches by 12 feet 2 inches. Massive! Fortunately there were several hands to help put it together. This quilt also includes the railroad fabric which has become a signature component of the My American Series. This fabric was also included on each of the small quilts. Every one of the small quilts had to have the railroad fabric appear somewhere, although the amount and placement was left up to the quilt makers. This quilt's design process is the stuff of legends among those who have worked with Dr. Gaither and has been the topic of my posting series Table Linens Beware. TTT was conceptualized and sketched on a napkin at Dr. Gaither's favorite restaurant. That napkin has been preserved and an image of it is on display with TTT.

Well, this is a very long posting. I will end here and do a follow up posting in a few days. I would like to thank Dr. Gaither for her assistance with providing me images. As the blizzard rages outside, preventing me from getting to my library of images on my computer at the museum, we have been able to jointly put this posting together with the help of Skype and email. Talk about community teamwork!

Starting the My American Series in Dr. Gaither's Words...Sort Of

Good evening from completely snowed in Maryland! The blizzard appears to be over with the snow having stopped a few hours ago. The great dig out has been in progress for a few hours and will continue into tomorrow. Everyone here is fine and in good spirits, if not a little touched by cabin fever. Anyway, on to the real post.

Late last year during one of the marathon stitching sessions to complete the Black Watermen quilt, I sat down with Dr. Gaither to talk about the My American Series quilts to build up information for a potential exhibit script. During the conversation, I attempted to type as she spoke which is an almost impossible task. While I am a fairly quick typist, my keyboarding skills were no match for the rate at which she talks when she is speaking about something she is passionate about. What follows is an excerpt from that conversation, although not word for word as I had to do some pretty serious paraphrasing and shorthand to keep up. I thought it would be a nice addition to the weekly series to get her take on each of the quilts in the series. Enjoy!

Talking about the Brown's Quilt as the opening or the first in what was to become a series [is difficult] because I didn't know at the time [it would become a series]. My process involves sharing the familiar experiences, sharing stories, and the moving out from that to incorporate others. Identity, choices we make, and then how these are layered. The format, the structure, felt like a perfect fit that it becomes more than that. Quilts protect us, keep us warm, are easily accessible. People have some knowledge of at least comfort quilts. Quilts are holders, holding the human stories, not just comfort quilts.

What has driven the series is the notion of an American Series. What struck in the Brown's quilt that needed telling was the news commentary that people were surprised not by the amount of money donated but that it was an African American couple who had done that. It made me stop and think.

While I was working on [the Brown's Quilt] I was working on series for my sabbatical show on who am I and I was struck by the number of people making up my biological family, spiritual family, and friends/community family. Each could be a story. The key for me is finding that story that needs telling that only that sort of one person can tell. With the Brown's quilt, it was significant that they had wealth and chose to give it for the preservation of the culture of the African American story in Baltimore; looking and recognizing the history and contributions as part of a collective American culture, not a separate culture.

I just stepped out into the community, telling the Brown's story, my own family story, my church story. It seemed like the next logical piece would be [to go into] the neighborhood and that was Trails, Tracks, Tarmac (the Community Quilt). In order to get that completed it required going out and working with the comminuty to identify people, places, and events that shaped Anne Arundel County. From that, the conversations multiplied. Somewhere in the mix, it became a 501(c)3 organization. That was like a huge pivitol moment that happened around art making and bringing people together for art, history, fellowship, museum collaboration. It just built on itself and just exploded.

More on the My American Series from myself and from this "interview" to come as the weekly series continues.

My American Series - The Brown's Quilt

At long last, I am keeping my promise and beginning the weekly series talking about each of the quilts in the My American Series. This series will feature each of the six quilts in the series in the order in which they were created. The first in the series is Homage to Ed and Sylvia Brown: Baltimore Album Quilt.

Dr. Gaither created the Brown's quilt in 2004 while on sabbatical from MICA. Yes, I said 2004. Amazing to believe that there have been 6 quilts in this series created in just 5 years with two of them completed last year. The Brown's quilt celebrates Baltimore philanthropists Ed and Sylvia Brown who made several generous contributions to cultural institutions throughout the city of Baltimore to preserve African American history and culture. One of those institutions was MICA, the school where Dr. Gaither teaches.

This piece incorporates squares Dr. Gaither created during a Baltimore Album quilt making class she took in Annapolis, MD led by Judy Shapiro. The squares created during this class eventually made their way on the quilt in the first square and the 19th square.

The quilt is the least like the other My American Series quilts aesthetically, however you can see the beginning of several features that would eventually become trademarks in several other quilts in the series. The quilt is a Baltimore Album style quilt just like the Poulson Slaver quilt, Airport quilt, and J2WH. There are 25 squares on the quilt, each highlighting an different aspect of the Browns' gifts, philosophy, or heritage. There are not nearly as many photo transfer images on the quilt and no multi-layered border, however many key elements are there including the use of hearts in the corners to anchor the quilt, the fleur de lis, and contemporary fabric. The quilt also fits into the series given its size (94 inches long and 100 inches wide).

A traditional Baltimore Abum quilt will feature the primary subject of the quilt in the center square, however the Brown's did not want the quilt to be about them primarily but the beliefs and values that shaped who they are. As a result, Dr. Gaither used an image of a Bible as the center square to illustrate the source of the couple's dedication to helping others.

This quilt is the beginning of a developing series not only in what Dr. Gaither quilts and they appear, but also in how she creates the quilts and incorporates the community. This first quilt was created as a solo project without assistance featuring members of her community. The next quilt in the series, the Community Quilt, begins as a solo project about her community with content assistance which then turns into a community wide project with several quilts created by community members inspired by hers. More about that quilt next week.

A full image of the Brown's quilt may be found in the posting directly below this one. I can't post a full close up image of the quilt, however I am including the center column with the Bible image and two rows showing different institutions included for you to get the "feel" for the quilt.