EVENTS

This dazzling display of ten quilts from the collection of Dr. Maude Southwell Wahlman presents an indigenous American art, an alternative aesthetic tradition quite different from that seen in widely known European-American quilts. African American quilts are characterized by strips, bold colors, large designs, asymmetry, multiple patterns, and improvisation. These quilts are unique in American arts because they show a combination or creolization of African textile ideas and symbols with American traditions. This exhibition is one of a series of programs that is a part of Oceanside Public Library’s Big Read event. The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. The 2012 Oceanside Big Read presents the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the acclaimed novel by African American writer Zora Neale Hurston.

The nation's strongest tradition of African-American quilting survives today in the Southern United States, practiced by women who have pursued their art in face of difficult economic, social, and political odds. The exhibition honors 20th century African American quilt artists, some of who were contemporaries of Hurston, and also celebrates a living art form still practiced today.

Dr. Maude Southwell Wahlman, Professor of Global Arts at University of Missoury-Kansas City, has done extensive fieldwork in Africa, and throughout the South and New England, where she discovered and interviewed many African-American quilters, and documented their work. Her prize winning Yale dissertation, African-American Quiltmaking: Origins, Development, and Significance, is recognized as landmark in the field. Dr. Wahlman has organized seventeen exhibitions, written four books, eleven exhibit catalogs, and over thirty articles on African and African American arts, and lectures widely in the United States.

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