African American Quilts at the Nelson Gallery
The Sandra McPherson Collection and the Avis C Robinson Collection
During the days of slavery African American
women not only worked the fields and cleaned the plantation houses but were the last line of defense against the bone chilling cold that crept into the cabins and field houses where their families lived. They sewed by hand not only the clothing the men, women and children wore in the day but also the bedding that kept them warm at night. As good material was hard to come by, they collected scraps of whatever they could get; recycling worn out thread-bare clothing, beddi
ng and even flour sacks. They would
carefully take apart the material and collect it until they had enough to make the heavy quilts that kept them warm at night. Out of these hard beginnings came the tradition of African American quilting.
This week at the Nelson gallery in the basement of the Art Building you can see a fantastic collection of these quilts from the slave era until now. When you walk into the exhibit you see an As you weave through admiring amazing array of colors and intricate repeated patterns. you might be tempted to quickly walk past a more simple quilt hanging in the middle of the room. However a second glance at the nearby information placard reveals it to be made by slaves almost two hundred years ago. Suddenly you can't take your eyes off it and it all the other quilts disappear. You can feel the heavy air of history hanging around it as you get an overwhelming urge to touch it in hopes of feeling a connection to that long ago time. You hold your breath and try to imagine the quilt lying across a bed in a field cabin....
Over time the tradition of quilting evolved spawning colorful repeating patterns and designs. Many examples of these can be found at the exhibit this week at the Nelson gallery.
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