ART REVIEW

Hwa Young Caruso, Ed. D. & John Caruso, Jr., Ph. D.
Art Review Co-Editors

THE ART OF QUILTING FROM FOLK ART TO FINE ART

From June through August 2005, the Williams College Museum of Art displayed an exhibit entitled “Quilt Masterpieces from Folk Art to Fine Art,”  The exhibit of twenty-seven quilts was on loan from the Newark Museum of Art in New Jersey and attracted a large number of visitors to the college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, a tranquil and picturesque community of 8,500 located a few miles from the border with New York and Vermont. [paragraph 1]

These full-sized quilts suspended on the walls presented a surprising diversity of styles, colors, designs, meanings, functions, purposes, and talents of quilt makers.  Ulysses Grant Dietz, Curator of Decorative Arts at the Newark Museum, wrote that “these quilts are labors of love, fulfilling the artistic impulses of their makers.”  Quilt making requires many hours of intensive labor.  Quilts are created as functional artworks frequently cherished as family heirlooms.  The intrinsic beauty of a quilt often surpasses the warmth of its purpose.  Unfortunately quilting is often regarded as a mere craft or folk art due to the misconception that its products do little more than keeping people warm.  [paragraph 2]

Quilting began in the ancient cultures of China, India, and Egypt some 5,400 years ago.  The technique of combining a front, batting (stuffing/padding), and a back with secure stitchery or embroidery was first used to produce decorative pieces for royalty.  The term quilt is derived from the Latin culcita puncta, a padded and tied mattress or pillow which was translated into Middle English (Anglo-Norman) as quilte, meaning "to wrap around the body" (American Heritage Dictionary,  2000). [paragraph 3]

Examples of quilting were unusual in Europe before the twelfth century.  Some researchers believe quilted undergarments were imported from the Holy Land by returning Crusaders.  Quilted shortshirts or gambeson were worn under body armor and chainmail to prevent chafing and provide warmth.  Quilts for bedding were mentioned in two medieval poems, the twelfth century French poem La Lai del Desire and the thirteenth century Parsifal.  The poem, La Lai del Desire, is the story of an immortal who seeks the love of a mortal maid.  After winning her hand the maid is led to a leafy bower before the marriage ceremony; "The bed was prepared of which the quilt was of a checkerboard pattern of two sorts of silk cloth, well made and rich" (Orlofsky & Orlofsky, 1974, p. 6). It seems the patchwork pattern was a quilt. The most famous medieval wedding quilt, used as a bed cover or wall hanging, was sewn in Sicily in 1392 and contains elaborate scenes from the legend of Tristan and Isolde. [paragraph 4]

As greater varieties of fabrics, including cotton, linen, flannel, and silk, became available in Europe after the sixteenth century, quilt making became possible for many women.  In Colonial America many women gathered in groups after Sunday worships to make quilts and talk about their lives, families, and social issues. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, quilt making in America experienced design fads after its enormous popularity during the Civil War (1861-65).  Women in the North and South sewed an estimated 350,000 quilts for Union and Confederate soldiers.  The most significant fad was known as “crazy quilting” or making patchworks of totally unrelated fabrics, colors, and designs.  This style was attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia where thirty-nine nations displayed items including Chinese and Japanese products.  The American crazy quilts were based on common geometric shapes in Japanese fabrics and crazed ceramics.  Crazy quilts lacked the body of a bed quilt and were used as expensive throws on couches and settees in over-decorated Victorian sitting rooms to make social statements.  [paragraph 5]

Wild Goose Chase

The quilts on display at Williams College offered much more than a retrospective of quilting fads. At the moment one entered the exhibition the misperception of quilting as a utilitarian craft melted away.  The power of quilting art resonated with inviting warmth, political flavor, refined commemoration, reflection of American history, substantial social commentary, and labor of love that used every single stitch to connect the viewer to each quilt’s unique qualities.  Quilting in this exhibition reached the level of a fine art that expresses profound concepts with strikingly bold colors and designs.  The quilts reflected the quilt maker’s personal, social, and political voices. [paragraph 6]

The strikingly modern abstract quilt, entitled Wild Goose Chase, from the early nineteenth century used only two simple designs: a red background and blue colored triangles which looked like a gaggle of geese flying away.  It was made between 1800 and 1830 by an unknown quilter using homespun wool.  The Wild Goose Chase was the first item purchased in 1918 for the Newark Museum's quilt collection.  The quilt is unusual because of its cut bottom corners, which indicates it was used on a four-poster bed.  [paragraph 7]  

Rhythm/Color: Spanish Dance

Another modern abstract quilt entitled Rhythm/Color: Spanish Dance is an example of an artwork that reaches beyond the traditional definition of quilting as folk art.  This quilt demonstrates the unlimited possibility of expressing artistic statements within the formal vocabulary of art and design using complex patterns, colors, designs, values and movements throughout the fabric.  Like a Spanish flamenco dance this quilt is filled

with undulating movement sustained by mixing a diagonal grid with a half circle design and subtle changes of color, value, and contrast.  Quilting is considered a woman’s art, yet this quilt was made in 1985 by Michael James, an abstract painter in the 1970’s, who expressed his artistic voice through patches of fabric.  [paragraph 8]  

The Wedding Album

Some quilts were made as gifts and others to honor life achievements.  The quilt entitled The Wedding Album was created in 1864 by Mary Nevius Potter and a quilting circle, each member of whom contributed one block.  It was intended as a bridal gift and made by the bride and her friends during the Civil War.  The quilt contains a proportional field of hearts, flowers, and emblems wishing Mary balance, equity, and tranquility in her marriage. Expressing patriotism was important during wartime and many of the quilts made for Union soldiers featured the American flag as the dominating motif.   [paragraph 9]  

The Commemorative Album

The Commemorative Album is a quilt that commemorated a historical event and a tribute to a person.  This elaborate work was produced in 1852 by semi-professional quilters who sewed and patched 121 separate panels together. Each panel was inscribed with the name of a member of the Old Stone Presbyterian Church in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey.  Two flags were placed in opposite corners of the quilt – the one of the U. S. A. and the other of Hungary that was struggling to win its independence from the Austrian Empire.  The quilt was an act of gratitude from the parishioners to Mrs. Reinhart, the pastor’s wife.  [paragraph 10]  

Bride's Quilt

During the nineteenth century married women in America were not allowed to participate in social activities outside of their homes or churches.  Quilting was an opportunity in the communal lives of women to share values and social concerns and an approved vehicle to express individual artistic creativity.  Through cooperative quilt making a bride and her friends could celebrate her marriage and family life.  Quilting also allowed women to share their opinions and feelings on a variety subjects including politics as they could not vote in Federal elections until 1919.  The 1860 quilt entitled Bride’s Quilt by Emeline Dean Jones of New Jersey was made for her marriage.   The quilt contains warm and delicate images of her childhood home, replete with lemons, oranges, cherries, and floral representations of wishful happiness, health, and tranquility in her family life.  [paragraph 11]  

Map Crazy

Quilts could contain completely unexpected themes such as New Jersey railroad map used in a faddish crazy quilt entitled Map Crazy made by Mrs. A. E. Reasoner in 1885.  Mrs. Reasoner depicted the route of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad from its terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey to Richfield Springs, New York. The quilt design was based on aerial photographs from a hot air balloon, and the details of the railroad tracks are delightful to examine.  This quilt celebrated the occupation of the quilt maker’s husband who was a railroad superintendent and his likeness appears twice on the quilt.  [paragraph 12]  

There are folk tales that during the ante-bellum period of 1830-1860 escaping slaves fled the South and were guided to the north by quilts hanging on front porches or in windows that directed them to safe houses in the Underground Railroad that would eventually lead them to freedom in Canada.  Northern abolitionists sponsored many handicraft fairs including quilt auctions which were used to raise money for anti-slavery activities.  The first anti-slavery fair selling quilts was held in Boston in 1834, and it was so successful that the movement spread throughout New England, and to other states.  [paragraph 13]    

Slave-Rape Story

The famous contemporary African American artist Faith Ringgold made a quilt entitled Slave-Rape Story in 1985.  Ringgold adopted quilt making as her major artistic medium to express her experiences and historical roots as a Black female.  This quilt was the only one in the exhibition framed in glass which made it a mixed-media painting.  She modified the traditional quilt making technique of telling a story through images by writing in a detailed story with an ink pen.  Ringgold’s title suggests explosive content – being raped – and it represents personal, social, historical, and political issues she shares in the form of an open diary.  She used the story-telling method of oral history as part of her African cultural heritage to erase the boundary between utilitarian purpose and aesthetics and thus elevates a folk art to the level of fine art.  Her work of art contains the gravity of unheard voices protesting their rape and enslavement.  [paragraph 14]    

The exhibit of quilts at the Williams College Museum of Art helped to correct the misperception of quilting as a folk art or a craft reserved for the cloistered lives of women.  Quilting has exceeded the boundaries of a utilitarian craft and achieved the status of a fine and reflective art filled with profound personal commentaries.  [paragraph 15]  

 Acknowledgement: We wish to express thanks to Ms. Suzanne Augugliaro, Public Relations Coordinator at the Williams College Museum of Art, for granting permission to take photos of the artworks and providing information about the museum’s exhibition.

REFERENCES

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed., 2000). "Quilt." Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Retrieved September 6, 2005 from http://www.bartleby.com/61/27/Q0032700.html.

Orlofsky, M. & Orlofsky, P. (1974). Quilts in America. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Caruso, H. Y. & Caruso, J. (2005). The art of quilting from folk art to fine art. Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education [online], 7(2), 15 paragraphs. Retrieved Month Day, Year from http://www.eastern.edu/publications/emme/2005fall/art_reviews.html