Ties that Bind: Quilting at the Clarke Africana Library:
This guides serves as a complement to two exhibits which are running simultaneously at the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library.
The first in this two-part exhibit, Precious Scraps: Toni Morrison and the African American Quilting Experience showcases the work created as part of the 2021 Toni Morrison quilting project and honors Morrison’s exploration of the African American diaspora experience. Most notably in her novel Beloved Toni Morrison recognized the importance of quilt making and the contributions to the art form by African Americans. In novels such as Beloved, Home, The Bluest Eye, and Sula Toni Morrison uses quilts and quilt making both as metaphor that imbue these everyday objects with a sense of identity, community, refuge, and healing and as a storytelling device that takes the often fractured lives of her characters and finds the whole. Morrison earned her master's degree in American literature from Cornell University, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. She died on August 5, 2019.
This exhibit was inspired by the Toni Morrison Quilting Project which was coordinated by Camille Andrews, former Emerging Literacies Librarian at Mann Library; Kofi Acree, Director of the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library; Marcie Farwell, Curator Kheel Center; Marsha Taichman, former Visual Resources Librarian at the Mui Ho Fine Arts Library; Leah Dodd, Co-Director for Research Services at Olin Library; Cady Fontana, Librarian at the Tompkins County Public Library and Brigid Hubberman, Community Quilting Resource Center.
Curated by Marcie Farwell, Gordon and Marjorie Osborne Textile Industry Curator at the Kheel Center.
The second part of the exhibit, Pieces of Ithaca: A Celebration of Quilting in the Ithaca Community seeks to build bridges between Cornell University Library and artists of the Ithaca quilting community and proudly showcases quilts crafted by skillful artists who reside in Ithaca and its surrounding areas. The works of Andrea Campbell Gibbs, Leanora Mims, Georgia Feasel and Martha Hawkes are featured at the Clarke Africana Library and in the online exhibition. For a more detail overview of this exhibit visit the Clarke Africana Library's History is a Clock blog.
Curated by Patricia Abraham, Africana Librarian at the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library.
Libguide created by Kofi Acree, Director of the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library.