Exhibit

Born of need or planned as art, quilts from rural black Arkansans convey the warmth of family ties

A Double Wedding Ring Pattern quilt by Essie Jackson is among those on display in the Old State House Museum’s “A Piece of My Soul: Quilts by Black Arkansans” exhibit.
A Double Wedding Ring Pattern quilt by Essie Jackson is among those on display in the Old State House Museum’s “A Piece of My Soul: Quilts by Black Arkansans” exhibit.

I believe that African-American history should be as complete as the history of the dominant or the mainstream population of the country. So when I saw that African-American quilt history was becoming the property of a group of scholars that had a very limited outlook on what African-American quilters have done over the years, I believed it was my task to try to give a more accurate and varied picture.

-- Cuesta Benberry (1923-2007)

It was time once again for officials of the Old State House Museum to get out the quilts.

So they went to their permanent collection of more than 200 vintage quilts, created by members of The Natural State's rural black communities and dating back to the late 1800s.

And for the third time, these quilts have been placed on exhibit. "A Piece of My Soul: Quilts by Black Arkansans" opened April 27 and will run through fall 2019.

The collection includes quilts in traditional patterns such as Lazy Gal Strip, Turkey Tracks, Job's Tears, Log Cabin, Wedding Plate, Broken Dishes, Center Medallion and Little Boys Britches. Quilts lovingly stitched by as many as three generations of the same family. Quilts by a few men. Regular quilts as well as "quilt tops, bed covers, summer spreads and quilt miniatures," according to the exhibit brochure.

The museum began to amass its quilt collection in 1985. The first quilt exhibit, in 1999, was presided over by guest curator Cuesta Benberry of St. Louis, a nationally known historian and quilt authority. Benberry worked with the staff on the collection for a number of years before her death in 2007; her research about the collection, and its creators, are the subjection of a book released in 2000.

During the first exhibit, the quilts were displayed on slant boards, says JoEllen Maack, curator. "Then in the second exhibit that we did we decided, well, how do you see quilts -- how do you really see quilts? And so we put them on beds. People really enjoyed that show because we had beds set up in all the galleries."

“A Piece of My Soul:

Quilts by Black Arkansans”

Through fall 2019, Old State House Museum, 300 W. Markham St., Little Rock

Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 1-5 p.m. Sunday; 9 a.m.-8 p.m. the second Friday of each month

Admission: Free

(501) 324-9685

oldstatehouse.com

For this exhibit, "we decided to just hang the quilts like pieces of art, which I think they are." Most of the quilts in the museum's collection will be shown on rotating basis.

More than 100 of the quilts are from the border of Arkansas and near Louisiana, Maack notes. "They're mother-daughter, mother-daughter-granddaughter -- and we're very, very fortunate in that aspect because that's just unheard of that you have a collection from a family that's three generations."

LIVES INTERWOVEN

Highlights include the oldest quilt in the collection. It was made around 1890 by Hattie Collins of Magnolia, who'd been born into slavery. Pieced from cotton scraps, the Log Cabin quilt bears obvious signs from years of use, but is no less magnificent in its careworn simplicity.

"We'll probably take this one down even sooner than the other ones because it is so old," Maack says.

Among the other featured quilts: a meandering, colorful Lazy Gal Strip quilt by Tillie Rae Williams Hall of Camden, circa 1970. A well preserved H quilt, fashioned by Hattie Collins' granddaughter, Herma Williams of Magnolia, in 1930. A Center Medallion quilt by Mary Allen Williams, made around 1950. An elaborate, circular-patterned, 75-pound Pine Cone quilt, made by Oscar Evans in 1986.

Museum director Bill Gatewood credits the women of the Girls, Boys, Adults Community Development Center in Marvell for contributions to the show. They made a quilt bearing the title of the exhibit. They also were the subjects of a 2007 video narrated by Benberry.

Whereas visitors will see patterns familiar to quilters, such as the Dresden Plate, or the Wedding Ring, these quilts are notable for the scraps from which they were made -- "the pieces and the colors," Gatewood says.

"That's what we love. And that's what the title comes from," Maack says. "It's 'A Piece of My Soul.' And it is a piece of their souls that they put into this. But it's also the pieces of the materials that they used."

Although these quilts became heirlooms, they were usually created out of need, she adds.

"Some quilts people just make and ... they put them in a cedar chest; that's what my great-grandmother did. She put them in a cedar chest, and they were just handed down to her great-granddaughter, which was me. But these quilts are used. You can see they're frayed; they might have some human stains on them."

They weren't merely pretty items that were put up and put away: "They needed them."

The quilts' structures are as varied as their designs. Fabrics include wool, cotton, polyester, muslin, burlap, satin. One is made of suit samples, one of funeral ribbons -- the ribbons of funeral flowers.

"The batting on the inside may be nonexistent. It may be cotton that was picked by the quilt creators, burlap bags, old blankets.

"We have some quilts that have actually newspaper inside," Maack says. Same with the quilt backs. "A lot of times it's flour sacks or things like that."

The creators were artists.

"It's not a 'Oh, I'm going to stick to a pattern; it's got to be perfect, it's got to be this and that,'" Maack adds. "They just put themselves into it like an artist and this is what they come up with, and it's absolutely beautiful. They don't go by such rigid structure -- 'it's got to be this or that.' And that's what I love about it. It's true art."

CONTINUING COLLECTION

The museum is still collecting quilts to expand the collection, one of several core collections in the museum. Gatewood says looking for such artifacts is part of the museum routine.

The youngest work currently in the collection is a Voodoo Quilt that will be brought out before the exhibit closes.

Display time is limited for the safety of the quilts. They are stored by rolling on acid-free rolls. (It's best not to fold them, Gatewood says.) Then they are wrapped with acid-free paper and kept in a temperature- and humidity-controlled space.

"Usually, the best thing to do is not to do anything to them," Maack says. "Funeral ribbons, there's no way you could conserve those at all. So sometimes it's just best to let them be."

The museum won't accept a quilt in too poor condition to be repaired. Those that can be restored are sent to a textile conservator out of state. But because the museum only brings them out every so often, "the quilts have stayed in remarkable shape," Maack says. "So thank goodness we haven't had to do much to them."

When not on display, they are available, by appointment, to people doing bona fide research.

Exhibit-related programs will go on throughout the duration of "A Piece of My Soul." The book featuring the collection, and Benberry's commentary on it, is also titled A Piece of My Soul and is available in the museum gift shop. Merchandise like coasters and mugs also is for sale.

Gatewood says, "This has been a tremendously successful, popular exhibit. And we're really tickled to have the collection that we do."

Style on 06/19/2018

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