In 2005, Gwen Marable, a descendant of Benjamin Banneker’s sister Jamimah, commissioned Bernice Clarke, a member of the African American Quilters of Baltimore, to create a quilt. The squares for it were inscribed by dozens of Banneker family members. Now, five year later at the Banneker Historical Park & Museum in Catonsville, Gwen offers us thread and yarn, and buttons and sequins, with the opportunity to embellish the quilt.
The invitation to adorn Gwen’s quilt comes in Stitches in Time, Threads of Change, where Dr. Joan M. E. Gaither, an educator and well known advocate for community quilting, exhibits the quilt she created to tell the story of her family dating back to 1882. “Multiple layers of attachments offer clues to the events of past and present family members,” she tells us about this richly layered piece. Beads surround each of her many relatives whose faces are printed on the cloth.
Many separate squares held together not by firm stitches but by large safety pins that could easily be released, make up Quilting as Community (2010). This collaboration is the work of 28 students in the fifth grade at Thunderhill Elementary School in Howard County. Each square tells the personal story of a child. Lindsey, perhaps better known as “Linz” includes family photos, the Star of David, and an image of the certificate from her naming ceremony in 1999; Allen, clearly a minimalist, features a golden retriever and a basketball; and an unnamed quilter leaves us with “RIP Lucky” and the images of six bunnies.
Photograph by Genevieve Kaplan, Education & Public Programs Manager at the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis
Photograph By Caro Sturges
- Photograph By Caro Sturges
The student’s art teacher, MICA grad Caro Sturges, was there to interpret the quilt for me. The children she taught had all been together since kindergarten, but were about to be dispersed to many different middle schools when they began the quilt.
A community facing separation, they wanted to be able to take their squares with them to their new schools. Their work embodies the ebb and flow of colleagues, friends, and families around all of us.
For inspiration, Caro instructed the kids to think of a person who had been influential in their life. Many responded: does it have to be a person? This explains the dogs, cats, and bunnies that abound!
Photograph By Polly Jazwiecki
You can see Stitches in Time, Threads of Change through April 2011. And for those who love quilts as I do:
- Catch My American Series, Documentary Story Quilts by Dr. Joan M. E. Gaither at School 33, on view through August 14.
- Celebrate the 20th anniversary of The African American Quilters of Baltimore at their exhibition at the James E. Lewis Museum at Morgan State University later this summer.
- And mark your calendars for Advocate Through Art at the main branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in September and October.
Doreen Bolger is always on the move because she can’t stop seeing, supporting, and writing about the arts in and around Baltimore City. Her lengthy love affair for the arts began in Long Island when her father, an executive in the textile industry, brought home breathtaking fabrics every night from the heart of the garment district. 