Ties that Bind: Quilting at the Clarke Africana Library: Selected Books on Quilting

Essays by Marsha MacDowell, Darlene Clark Hine, Cuesta Benberry, and Bill Harris examine the history and meaning of quilting in individual artist's lives and within the contexts of community and family. Also included are excerpts of interviews with quilters Sarah Carolyn Reese, Ione Todd, Deonna Green, and Rosa Parks. In recent years, the study of quilts and quiltmaking has provided Americans with a new vehicle for understanding their past.

Some believe that recent studies of oral histories telling of the role quilting played in the Underground Railroad have inspired African Americans to take up their fabric and needles, but whatever the reason, quilters like Faith Ringgold, Clementine Hunter, Winnie McQueen, and many others are keeping the African American traditions of quilting alive.

This book celebrates the Brown Sugar Stitchers Quilt Guild’s twenty years of using creative spirits through thread, needle, batting and fabric to acknowledge and support the author’s family, friends, community and personal creativity.

A Communion of the Spirits represents the first national survey of African-American quiltmakers. It is also a personal record of how Roland L. Freeman's life has intertwined with the world of quiltmaking for almost sixty years--"as an African-American male; as a child who was deeply influenced by the cultural traditions and magical powers of quilts; and, for more than three decades, as a photographer and folklorist.

In this book Patricia A. Turner explores the culture and recent history of African Americans through the creations and wisdom of nine quilters. Turner profiles quilters who exemplify the range of black women and men dedicated to the making of quilts, and she shows how their craftwork establishes order and meaning in their lives. The artisans comprise eight women and one man, ranging from teenagers to octogenarians, representing an array of education and income levels, and living across the United States, including Alaska.

In 1993, author Jacqueline Tobin visited the Old Market Building in the historic district of Charleston, South Carolina, where local craftspeople sell their wares. Amid piles of beautiful handmade quilts, Tobin met African American quilter Ozella Williams and the two struck up a conversation. With the admonition to "write this down," Williams began to tell a fascinating story that had been handed down from her mother and grandmother before her.

Since the 19th century, the women of Gee's Bend in southern Alabama have created stunning, vibrant quilts. Beautifully illustrated with 110 color illustrations, The Quilts of Gee's Bend includes a historical overview of the two hundred years of extraordinary quilt-making in this African-American community, its people, and their art-making tradition. This book is being·released in conjunction with a national exhibition tour including The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, and theWhitney Museum of American Art.

This catalog is the first book-length publication devoted to the exquisite story quilts of contemporary artist Faith Ringgold. Combining painted images, handwritten texts, and quilting techniques, Ringgold weaves together modernist painting; feminist critique; postmodernist strategies of appropriation, parody, and montage; and personal memoir in a remarkable synthesis that takes on European modernism, African American folk art, and the "black aesthetic" of the 1960s and 1970s.