Page 24 - MyMomHadAQuiltLikeThat

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African-American quilts have since been “discovered,” so are
valuable today. The interest in African-American quilts culminated a
few years ago with the nation-wide display of quilts from Gees Bend,
Arkansas, magazine articles, a TV show, and a big picture book. I saw
that display in Tacoma, WA.
This collection does not include a distinct chapter for African-
American quilts. Instead, African-American quilts are contained
within the chapters based on their predominant patterns. Only a
few pieces in the collection are truly improvisational. Such quilts
are relative hard to find for sale, and there is not a copious volume
of literature about them. The collection does include several pieces
similar to those in Eli Leon’s book, Who’d A Thought It, Improvisation
in African-American Quiltmaking, and featured in a New York Times
article by Roberta Smith, The Radical Quilting of Rosie Lee Tompkins"
(published 6/29/20). The collection includes conventional designs
such as “Trip Around the World” (Fig. 132, Page 158) and a “Monkey
Wrench” (Fig. 335, Page 380) both notable for brilliant colors and
sold as African-American quilts. Several are of concentric rectangles,
so-called “Pigpen” or “Roof Top” popular among the Gees Bend
quilters (Chapter "Squares", Page 365). Other likely African-American
quilts in the collection are a completely polyester quilt, excellent for
its brilliance (Fig. 205, Page 239), and a soft-colored Joseph’s Coat,
simple vertical stripes, done in corduroy (Fig. 44, Page 65). A well-
documented applique by African-American folk artist Sarah Mary
Taylor was appraised on the Antiques Road Show. (Fig. 159, Page
188)
How do I know a quilt is African-American? A few were repre-
sented as such by their vendors, but as one book emphatically says,
“you can tell by looking.” Consider Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink:
The Power of Thinking Without Thinking which describes how collectors
steeped in their topics tune their instincts of recognition.
Noting that Eli Leon collected over 3,000 African-American quilts,
usually in California, I don’t feel like such a hoarder!
Events in American history are represented by some of the quilts.
Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in 1927 and airplane images began
appearing in quilts soon after that. The collection contains one small
tied quilt made of fabric printed with images of older airplanes (Fig.
Figure 4: Patch from Skitch Henderson
181, Page 211), one with calico airplanes at the corners of crossing Airplanes, Fig. 183, Page 213.
lines in an Irish Chain (Fig. 182, Page 212), and a third of bold black
pieced airplanes on a muslin ground (Fig. 183, Page 213). The latter
was sold as coming from the estate of New England folk art collector
Skitch Henderson, a noted TV musician and folk art collector. The
Democratic Donkey pattern’s popularity coincided with the presiden-
tial term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945 (Fig. 170,