African Americans have been quilting since coming here. There's a long history of needle arts, [including] quilt making in Africa. When African people were brought to this country, they did not come without needlework skills. They could do patchwork, they could do appliqué. The quilts were not used as bed quilts in Africa. But there's a very rich patchwork tradition -- patchwork clothing, patchwork armor, horse blankets in Mali, and tents and clothing in Nigeria. Pieces of patchwork -- cotton patchwork cloth -- have been found in ancient tombs in Egypt, so there's a long history of African people involved in needlework. It was very easy bringing those skills here to apply them to the traditional American bed quilt.
You observe in this show [that] the greater body of the work is narrative work. There's a long tradition of narrative quilts used in Africa -- as quilted banners, appliqué banners. West African history is told by the griot. It's an oral history -- the griot handing down the stories of a village from one generation to another. When African people were brought to this country as slaves, they were not allowed to read; they were not allowed to write. I would like to think that it was an easy assimilation from that oral history into a pictorial history. We are people with a lot of stories to tell, so what better way to tell [them] than in a story quilt?
At the same time, I wanted to show the diversity of quilts that are within the culture. The quilts are just as diverse as we are as a people. It's not just about one type of quilt. You only have to look at this exhibition and you see a variety of quilts, with all sorts of materials and all sorts of technique. There's diversity of style, and that's important.
There's a spiritual song -- "We have come this far by faith." It's faith that brought us through the slave era. That belief, that Supreme Being, that God was with us, in our spirit, to make us strong to get over. It was faith that got us through slavery; it was faith that got us through the civil rights movement; it's faith that we deal with on an everyday basis in hopes that our lives will be better. It helps get us through -- fuel for the soul, fuel for the spirit.
Most of the artists in this exhibition have not had any quilting lessons. Most of them are self-taught quilt makers. They give birth to their work in their own way. Whatever technique, whatever material that they want to use -- it's their decision, and it's a spiritual thing. When you're giving birth to that quilt, then you have to get it out. You're going to use whatever materials and methods that can help you tell that story, that can help you give birth to that quilt.Some of the techniques are very unorthodox. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And it's done with total abandon, total abandon. That's the one thing that's really neat about African-American quilting -- we don't follow the rigid rules of quilt making. The spirit has to be free to fly. It has to be free to give birth to these creations, and it is a birthing.
We are all on a spiritual quest. That's the connection between religion and art -- to know or have knowledge of our own humanity and our own spirit. We're all on a spiritual journey to know ourselves. Hopefully, we get that through our religious study. We get that through the creation of art. With everything that we do, we come closer to knowing ourselves, working out issues of our own spirituality and trying to find ourselves within this work. You have to concentrate to make this work, and to me, that's like a meditation in itself. You have to go deep. You have to really get to the root of your spirit.
I really don't feel that one can explain what "soul" is. You can feel it, you can see it. You have a spiritual connection to the soul, and art is the fire, the fire that makes it burn and just be fuel for our soul.
[Every artist in the exhibition] comes from a Christian background. Our parents and grandparents are Christians. But not everybody in the show is Christian. I'm a member of the Baha'i faith. A couple of members have gone back to traditional African beliefs. We have a Buddhist in the show. But we have that commonality -- that we come from Christian beliefs.
I have to speak for myself as an artist. I feel that our primary objective in life is to learn about God and to try and be closer to him, try and be a good person. When we create art, and through the meditation on that creation, it draws us near to that goodness that's God. We talked in the beginning about art and worship. That's our primary objective; that would be my objective -- to try to get closer to God, to try and find our own spirituality.
Some of the quilts have been inspired by biblical quotes. Some have been inspired by African-American history. Some are quilts that commemorate families or special events. Some of the quilts deal directly with prayers that were created and chanted by the artist. There's a wide range of inspiration that comes together.
Very few of the quilters will hand-quilt their work or do handwork. [There are] many quilts with computer-generated images on them, and people have drawn their work via computer. [There are] materials such as cotton and synthetics and rocks and shells and sequins and beads and just the whole gamut. If you can sew it, glue it, pad it, whatever, and put it onto the quilt surface, it's there. Everything is there.
Not only will people come away knowing a little bit about African-American history, but hopefully they will be touched spiritually, especially when thinking of the timbre of the times. Here we have this show about spirituality; here we have this show about God. Even as our world is in conflict, still it is just one God that is personified in this show. There is one God, and we're all blessed to have that one God, regardless of what form, what religion, what culture, what ethnic group we come from. It's just one God.This show is so diverse it sends a message out to the world: this is what can be; this is what should be; this is good. Because it's about unity, it's about love, it's about faith; it's about bearing witness to history, bearing witness, hopefully, for a better life. Bearing witness for a change in the world that will unite all faiths, because "we have come this far by faith." We have come this far as a people, believing in God. Regardless of the religion, it still is just one God.
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