New Exhibit and Artist Talk

Just wanted to let everyone know the Black Watermen of the Chesapeake quilt will be making its Maryland debut post-dedication this Saturday at the Banneker-Douglass Museum. Actually it will be hung tomorrow (Friday) morning and on display on March 19-20 ONLY! The quilt exhibit is part of the museum's contribution to the Maryland Day celebrations going on throughout Annapolis and southern Anne Arundel County over the weekend. On Saturday, the museum will show a one hour documentary on the black watermen of the Chesapeake Bay and fingers crossed some of the film's stars will be on hand to talk about the documentary afterwards. If you would like to come see the quilt and possibly meet the artist herself, come on by at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday.

For a second chance to meet Dr. Gaither and hear about her work, join us at the Annapolis Barnes and Noble at 2:00 p.m. this Sunday, March 21. She will give a talk on her quilt I Am, currently on display at the bookseller. You might even get a chance to preview one of the quilts she is currently working on. If you can't make the artist talk, her quilt will be on display at Barnes and Noble until the end of the month.

My American Series - The Poulson Slaver Quilt

The third quilt in the My American Series is the Poulson Slaver Quilt. The quilt was created in 2007 for the exhibition At Freedom's Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland, a joint exhibition between the Maryland Historical Society, Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Morgan State University. This exhibition was created by the students at MICA and Morgan with the assistance of staff members at the MDHS and the Lewis Museum. As part of the exhibition, two artists were selected to serve as artists in residence for the exhibition, one of whom was Dr. Gaither.

Dr. Gaither created the Poulson Slaver Quilt especially for this exhibition and based it on an artwork in the MDHS permanent collection. The quilt takes its name from the center square featuring the Poulson slave ship which is the subject of the painting in the exhibition. Dr. Gaither used the Poulson slave ship as the launching point for a visual discussion of slavery throughout the quilt. The squares in each corner of the center square represent the abolitionist movement and their actions. In the outer corners of the quilt are squares depicting a few of the ways slaves were able to gain their freedom - manumission (being set free by the slave's master), a will, escape, or joining the Union Army during the Civil War. On this quilt, the American-themed fabric rope which is included in the My American Series border comes down in the bottom corners to form nooses. This unique feature of the quilt border acknowledges the lynchings occurring in Maryland during slavery and beyond.

The exhibition has a great website with extensive information on the show and images including a great quote from Dr. Gaither talking about this quilt. In line with my belief that no one talks about Dr. Gaither's work better than she does, here is a portion of her statement from the website.

According to Gaither, “I juxtapose issues of slavery and racism against the warmth and comfort that quilts provide. I highlight the consequences of laws, codes, beliefs, and values for those who continue to be marginalized. These quilts are layered, embedded and embellished with images, text, objects, and symbolic cloth to make emotional connections with issues of identity and freedom of body, mind, and spirit. The Baltimore Album style quilt focuses on particular people, places, objects, and events that challenge the complexities of the institution of slavery.

                                                                                                - http://digital.mica.edu/exhibition/

When the exhibition opened, it was located at both the Maryland Historical Society and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. The Poulson Slaver Quilt was hung at the Maryland Historical Society next to the painting it was based on. Also included in this exhibition was Dr. Gaither's quilt How Much Longer? This powerful quilt is held together entirely by pins. There are no stitches holding it together. Dr. Gaither depicts acts of discrimination and racism against herself all while asking the question how much longer will this go on. Several of the pins on this quilt are left open to show the pain brought about by racism and the events shown on the quilt. It is an impressive and moving work which uses soft colors to draw viewers into the artwork only to confront them with the subject of racism upon looking at the quilt up close.

More information to come on this quilt in the next few days. To learn more about the exhibition At Freedom's Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland, visit http://digital.mica.edu/exhibition/.

Long Time, No Blog

Hello blog readers!

It has been nearly a month since I have posted anything here for which I apologize. You can't exactly have a weekly series when you aren't posting weekly. I will endeavor to make up for my lack of posts in the coming weeks. There are several events and much quilt news as of late that I thought I would share.

The My American Series quilts have returned to Maryland. The Community Threads exhibition in Hartford, CT ended last month and was a resounding success with people interested in holding the exhibition again in the next few years. Dr. Gaither went to Hartford for the closing of the exhibition where she gave two artist talks on her work at the Capital Community College which were well received.

Two weeks ago, Dr. Gaither presented a quilting workshop for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History. This workshop was held in conjunction with the museum's exhibition on the Skurlock Studio, which was a photography studio run by a family of photographers in Washington, DC who chronicled African American life and culture in DC. The program was a great success with several quilters in attendance who made quilt squares as well as showed off some of their work. Their work was truly amazing.

As I mentioned in posts last month, Dr. Gaither has a quilt on display at the Barnes and Noble in Annapolis. Due to the snow storms and some trouble getting the quilt hung, the exhibition of her work was extended and her family tree quilt will remain on display through the month of March. She will be presenting a talk on her work at the store on Sunday, 21 March 2010 at 2 p.m. If you are in the area, please come out and join us.

As a special treat for the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County commemoration of Maryland Day, the Black Watermen of the Chesapeake quilt will be making an appearance at the Banneker-Douglass Museum. The most recent addition to the My American Series will be making its Maryland debut on Saturday, 20 March. The quilt will only be on display for one day, so be sure to come in and see it. The largest of the My American Series quilts, it promises to take up quite a bit of space. I will be interested to see exactly how high we have to move the quilt to get the entire thing to fit. Fortunately we have an entire former exterior wall of a building to work with. (The Banneker-Douglass Museum is comprised of two buildings, a former church and a glass and brick addition. When constructing the addition in 2005, the museum preserved the exterior wall and now use it as an interior.)

J2WH is now on display at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore and will remain there until 6 June 2010. It is on exhibit thanks to the National Art Education Association's 2010 Annual Conference to be held in Baltimore in April. Dr. Gaither will conduct a workshop on her methods during the conference for teachers in attendance.

Finally, a new member of the My American Series family is in progress! Dr. Gaither was commissioned last year to create a quilt for the National Black Theatre Festival held every other year in North Carolina. I have seen the initial stages of the quilt and can say it will do its fellow My American Series quilts proud. This quilt is being prepped to have the greatest amount of community contribution yet. Working with organizers of the festival, Dr. Gaither hopes to incorporate images of people past and present who have worked with the festival as well as have them add something personally to the quilt. The border of the quilt appears to be almost twice as large as any of the others to leave room for many of the festival's attendees to add their own stitches. It should be an amazing process to watch. I will try to post some pictures throughout the process. I will add that it might just overtake the Black Watermen of the Chesapeake quilt to claim the title of largest quilt in the series! It is currently larger, but we will have to see how much it shrinks as it is quilted.

Well, that is enough updates for the moment. I will restart the My American Series postings this weekend. No more month-long breaks between postings, I promise!