HOW TO GO
What: “And Still We Rise,” 400 years of black history told through 85 story quilts.
Where: The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, 50 E. Freedom Way, Cincinnati
When: Through March 29. The museum is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.
Admission: $12 adults; $10 seniors/students and $8 children, 3-12. Group discounts available with advance registration.
Parking: Options include The Central Riverfront Parking Garage at the Banks, The Fountain Square Parking Garage and some street parking and surface lots.
Also: A six-hour workshop, “Using Quilts to Teach About History” is being offered by textile artist Cynthia Lockhart at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 22. Reservations are required. Fee is $40 for adults, $20 for children ages 10-18 and includes admission to exhibit and all materials. For reservations, (513) 333-7737.
For information: Call (513) 333-7500 or see www. freedomcenter.org
In our Worth The Drive series, arts writer Meredith Moss visits special arts exhibits throughout our region that are worth your time and money.
If you have an exhibit to suggest, contact Meredith: MMoss@coxohio.com Please leave a daytime phone number.
In our Worth The Drive series, arts writer Meredith Moss visits special arts exhibits throughout our region that are worth your time and money.
If you have an exhibit to suggest, contact Meredith: MMoss@coxohio.com Please leave a daytime phone number.
To hear fabric artist Cynthia Lockhart talk about her special quilt, see MyDaytonDailyNews.com
In our Worth The Drive series, arts writer Meredith Moss visits special arts exhibits throughout our region that are worth your time and money.
If you have an exhibit to suggest, contact Meredith: MMoss@coxohio.com Please leave a daytime phone number.
To hear fabric artist Cynthia Lockhart talk about her special quilt, see MyDaytonDailyNews.com
“When a faction of American society is excluded from the master narrative of the country’s collective histories, the whole society loses. Failure to tell an inclusive history of any nation leaves its citizens needlessly vulnerable to repeating patterns of oppression and injustice from the past.
…As active representatives in sync with the social, political and cultural currents of their communities, contemporary artists’ renderings can serve as some of the world’s most effective tools for imparting historical narratives and as powerful weapons against ignorance, fear, and distrust.”
Carolyn Mazloomi, curator
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You’d be hard-pressed to find a more fascinating way to learn black history than to visit the current exhibit at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
“This is the largest quilt show ever mounted at a museum in the United States,” says Carolyn Mazloomi, who curated the colorful and creative exhibit that has just been extended and will be on display in Cincinnati through March.
Mazloom’s idea? To create a visual survey of 400 years of black history using quilts. The result is “And Still We Rise: Race, Culture and Visual Conversations.”
“Statistics show most Americans don’t use reading as first vehicle to learn anything,” she says. “This is a creative way to learn, and it’s not only for African-Americans but for white folks as well. The whole thing is about learning, there are a lot of young black people that don’t know their history. This is an avenue of learning for everyone.”
Mazloom says the exhibit gives voice to personal, authentic and unique histories of black men and women — relating painful stories of enslaved ancestors, highlighting contemporary political leaders and drawing attention to social challenges our nation continues to face today.
Mazloomi, who has studied quilts for 35 years, spent three years working on the impressive project which was organized by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and Cincinnati Museum Center and will tour the nation for four years after leaving Cincinnati.
She began, she says, by creating a timeline that begins in 1619, when a Dutch ship brought 20 African indentured servants to the English colony of Jamestown, Va., and ends in 2012 when many U.S. states enacted newer and stricter policies concerning voter identification.
In between are subjects ranging from historical events — such as President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on racial segregation in schools — to individual heroes: tennis player Arthur Asche, civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., Dayton poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, baseball’s Jackie Robinson.
Maxine Thomas of Jamestown quilted her tribute to the 14th amendment to the Constitution which was ratified in 1868 and recognized individuals born or naturalized in the U.S. as citizens — including those born as slaves.
Lesser known heroes are honored as well: you’ll met Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave who was shot and killed in 1770 by British soldiers in the Boston Massacre and Phillis Wheatley, a slave who published the first book by a black author in 1773. In 1866, Cathy Williams became the first black female to enlist in the army, disguising herself as a man. A heart-breaking quilt entitled “We Hid in the Woods and Swamps,” pictures children hiding on a January day in 1923 while a white mob destroyed their black town of Roswood, Fla.
How she approached the work
After writing the timeline and the topics, Mazloomi distributed the list to members of her Women of Color Quilters Network, a group of 1,600 men and women who live in the United States and around the world. The organization, founded by Mazloomi in 1985, is the the largest black quilt guild in the nation.
Eighty-five members were offered to opportunity to chose their favorite topic, conduct their own research, and design a quilt to tell one aspect of the story. The quilts are arranged chronologically.
It’s obvious that Mazloomi gave her quilters complete artistic freedom and as a result the quilts range from folk art to traditional and contemporary. The artists employ a wide variety of techniques — some old, some new. And the wonderful array of fabrics and materials range from paper and metal to plastic. Many of the quilts on display are three-dimensional.
“They used whatever you could put on a quilt and have it adhere,” says Mazloomi.
Meet a quilter
One of the talented quilters involved in the project is fiber artist Cynthia Lockhart who chose to design her quilt around abolitionist Levi Coffin. She teaches at the University of Cincinnati.
“I didn’t know much about him before I began doing research,” she says, “but I’ve always been fascinated by the Underground Railroad. And through my research I learned that he was a reverend who was revered as the master conductor of the Underground Railroad network.”
Her colorful quilt, shaped like an abstract map, incorporates information about both the man and the history. It took her six months to complete and is fashioned of felt, fibers, netting, lace, leather, metal chain, beading and felted balls. The techniques she used included hand painting, stencil, acrylic painting, strip layering, and both machine and hand-stitching.
“Over a period of years, 3,300 slaves successfully escaped through his house,” says Lockhart, pointing to the number that she has woven into her quilt. “I’ve added secret passages in the quilt as a metaphor, and the circles in my quilt represent Underground Railroad stations across the United States and Canada. The number of circles reflect the number of documented freedom stations. “
Lockhart, who will conduct a six-hour quilt workshop at the museum on Saturday, Feb. 22, says she and the other quilters tell their part of the story from their own perspective.
“I tell a story from a joyful place,” she says. “I want viewers to feel compelled to ask questions, to experience what the art makes them feel. It’s a personal journey each of us take when we view art.”
Quilts as teachers
Mazloomi says quilts can be a powerful teaching tool because everyone is familiar with them in one way or another. Although they aren’t always so cozy and comfy.
“One of my network members says that when people hear she’s a quilter, she explains that she makes narrative quilts,” says Mazloomi.
Her friend typically adds this warning: “I don’t think you would want to sleep under one of my quilts because they might give you nightmares!”
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