NEW YORK, March 28 (UPI) -- Europeans find warmth in comforters, but Americans have always loved quilts and have made them into a form of needlecraft art that is taking its place along with mom and apple pie as a native icon.
There are three current quilt exhibitions in New York -- Talking Quilts, at the American Folk Art Museum, quilts with religious themes at the gallery of the American Bible Society, and an overall view of three centuries of American quilts and other needlework at the New-York Historical Society. These have been mounted within a year after the Whitney Museum show illustrating the celebrated skills of women living in the black rural community of Gee's Bend, Ala., for designing quilts with geometric patterns.
All of these shows, and others in various parts of the country, are remarkable tributes to the eye for pattern and the stitching fingers of generations of American quilters. Quilts may not be "high" art, but they can be hung on the wall of a major museum and look as though they belong there, and more and more museums are acquiring them.
As occurs in many of these quilts, the secondary pattern of the stitching used to hold the backing and filler to the top of the quilt adds to the overall interest of the design. This is particularly true of the quilts included in "Home Sewn" at the historical society, a show that focuses on the social aspect of needlework, especially quilts that were made by groups of women who formed "sewing circles."
One of the most dazzling quilts in "Home Sewn" is the "Mariner's Compass Quilt," stitched in New York between 1830 and 1840. It has stylized nautical compass motifs covering the entire upper coverlet surface, enhanced by intricate matching stitching patterns. Works like this remind the viewer that household duties kept most 18th and 19th century women tethered to their sewing baskets, making most of their family's clothing and other household textiles.
But quilting design was the only way most of these women could express their artistic talents, and they even stitched their names on the hems of their creations if they felt like it. Much-admired designs were widely shared with relatives and women friends, to be copied from generation to generation by networking quilters, an aspect of the art explored by the bible society show, "Threads of Faith: Recent Work From the Women of Color Quilters Network."
This show consists of 53 contemporary quilts with imagery ranging from realistic to abstract made by black women and one man, including trained artists or artisans, who are part of a 1,700-member national quilters' network.
L'Merchie Frazier, a Boston member, is represented by a highly complex quilt exploring the pre-Civil War underground railroad by use of replicas of written texts and photo-transferred pictures superimposed on a multi-pattern ground. Another quilter, Alice Beasely of Oakland, Calif., has hit on a more recent theme, terrorism.
Beasely's quilt depicts observers standing behind the yellow tape of a disaster scene, and she describes this imagery as showing people of many ages, races, beliefs and cultures "helplessly watching our society and innocence transformed."
"Talking Quilts" at the folk art museum focuses on a very specialized area of quilt design using words instead of images by means of embroidery, stenciling, pen and ink, piecing and appliqué.
These quilts provided women with a forum to voice opinions, quote the scriptures, or provide their families with blankets of protective prayer. They are epitomized by the "Psalm 23 Quilt," spelled out by Lena Moore of Canton, Miss., in thunderous red letters edge to edge across an ivory ground.
The 20 quilts in the show range from Ohioan Margaret Blosser's 1843 "Stormy Day Quilt," consisting of weather reports for each day of a month embroidered on cotton patches, to the 1998 "Strong Words" quilt made by Robin Schwalb of Brooklyn, N.Y., using stenciled cotton appliqués. One of the best is a quilt made by Lavinia Rose of Cortlandville, N.Y., in the 1860s for a newlywed couple.
It reads: "The Bible chart keep in full view/'Twill lead you safe the journey through. Love to you and yours, Mother."
Another, dated 1983, was stitched by Jessie B. Telfair, a black resident of Parrott, Ga., in big block letters, one in each piecework square, spelling out "Freedom" over and over again. She was inspired to make the quilt by an earlier experience of losing her job for trying to register to vote. The colors of this quilt with its simple message of protest are red, white and blue.
"Home Sewn" runs through April 18, "Threads of Faith" runs through April 17, and "Talking Quilts" runs through Aug. 1.
