By Toni Baraga
Earlier this year, the Museum of Fine Arts unveiled "Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories," an exhibit spanning more than 300 years, showcasing the interconnectivity between the social and economic development of the United States, and one of the world's oldest art forms.
The exhibit features a variety of artists from different backgrounds, races, genders and ethnicities.
"To God and Truth" by Bisa Butler is one of the main quilts featured in the exhibit. The work is based off of a photograph of the Morris Brown College baseball team, taken in 1899.
"[The photo] just kind of blew my mind ... I just didn't have a concept of black people in that era, playing baseball." said Bisa Butler. "We have this perception of Black people after slavery, struggling, being sharecroppers and having a very hard life. But these are men, I'm not gonna say of leisure, but baseball was a pastime ... and it just really struck me that I, and a lot of people, have the wrong idea about what life was like for these people."
Click below to hear Butler discuss "To God and Truth" in full.
The theme of red, white and blue continues throughout the exhibit in a variety of ways. Some quilts are more simple, with delicate patterns and solid colors, while others display scenes from the country's turbulent history, such as the "Civil War Zouave quilt," created by an unidentified artist.
Many of the quilts feature emotional and powerful subject matter. Racial injustice, gun control and sexuality are just some of the topics embodied in the textiles.
"Dream 2: King & The Sisterhood" by Faith Ringhold (1988).
"Strange Fruit II" by Carolyn L. Mazloomi (2020). The piece is based off the song "Strange Fruit," written by Abel Meeropol in 1937 and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. Holiday is depicted in the top left corner of this quilt.
"A Deeper Form of Chess" by Sanford Biggers.
"Untitled" by Michael C. Thorpe (2020).
"#howmanymore" by Syliva Hernández (2018). Hernández created this quilt after the 2018 mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
"Blanket of Red Flowers" by Agusta Agustsson (1979).
"Survivors" by Carla Hemlock (2011-2013). This quilt represents the brutal history of Native Americans in the U.S. The 48 wampum figures linked around the outside of the circle are each inscribed with the name of surviving Native American nations in the U.S.
"I feel like quilting has this accessibility that we all know. Fabric, we all understand it, we're all wearing it, so I think that the bridge to communicate with quilts may be an easier connection for masses of people. But, I don't think that quilts add anything more than other art forms. It's just an art form that people are less intimidated by," Butler said.
The exhibit will be open through Jan. 17, 2022.
Credits:
Photos by Toni Baraga