MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Quilts as a canvas have served as a means of social protest, activism, and political involvement—a way to make a point, stand for or against something, to carry a message. In the 18th and 19th centuries, quilts gave women one of the only tools for expressing opinion, a figurative voice that could be used when a literal voice was not allowed. Commemorative quilting, “using her quilting skills to honor the people and events that create our nation’s story”, is a key component of the history of quilting in America and one way that she, the woman finding her voice through quilting, first used a quilt as a tool that reached far beyond the bed upon which it would be placed. “Quilts are visual documents of our nations history. They can be made to celebrate an important event or record a tragedy. These quilts will not allow us to forget that we are indeed bound together as a nation despite ethnic, religious, political, and economic differences.” But we are different and face different obstacles and consequences in the world in which we are bound together. This, the reaction to those obstacles and consequences that are faced, is where the quilter defines the meaning and message that will become the basis of the work that will take many hours, sometimes years, to complete.When Faith Ringgold turned to fabric and quilting as her medium in the 1980’s, she described her reason for turning to quilts as her medium as a “search for an earthier medium than painting which seemed distant and cold” and she enjoyed the process of “figuratively pinning the story to the quilt.” Ringgold is one of six artists and quilters explored in my research.