Quilt exhibit showcases beauty and artistry of quilting
Dr. Tracy Vaughn-Manley is a professor in the African American Studies Department at Northwestern University. Her quilts, along with the quilts of Dr. Melissa Blount and Betty Joy Bonds will be on display as part of an exhibit entitled, “Radiant Compositions II,” from Thursday, Jan. 12, to Saturday, March 4 at the Norris University Center, in the Dittmar Gallery on Northwestern’s Evanston Campus. Photo provided by Dr. Tracy Vaughn-Manley.
“When I put the needle and the thread to the fabric, it was a real familial, matriarchal legacy. My great grandmother made her living as a seamstress, my grandmother was a very accomplished sewer … The minute I started, it was like I tapped into that legacy, I felt it,” she said. The thing about quilts and the quilt work that speaks so much to Vaughn-Manley is how it allows people to gather and have community.
Vaughn-Manley’s quilts will be part of the Radiant Compositions II exhibit. The Dittmar Gallery will present “Radiant Compositions II,” from Thursday, Jan. 12th, to Saturday, March 4th at the Norris University Center, 1999 Campus Drive, on Northwestern’s campus. The exhibit also will include the work of Dr. Melissa Blount and quilter Betty Joy Bonds.
Vaughn-Manley believes that people should be able to create with their hands. She tries to use the best fabrics, the most rich, ornate, luxurious fabrics she can find to show how far Black people have come. She also wants her quilts and the fabrics she uses to show Black people’s resilience.
Vaughn-Manley often uses her quilts in many of her African American Literature courses to underscore whatever the class is reading, particularly if it is Toni Morrison or Alice Walker. Vaughn-Manley pointed out there are Black women writers who use quilts and quilting to signify Black interiority, or Black interior life. There is a short story by Alice Walker, called “Everyday Use,” that features quilts. Toni Morrison often uses quilts, quilting or sewing in a lot of her novels. Lucille Clitfon has a collection of poems called “Quilting,” and Nikki Giovanni has a collection of poems called “Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea.”
The students appreciate being able to see the quilts Vaughn-Manley has made and are enthusiastic about learning about quilts and quilting. Vaughn-Manley also has taught students how to make quilts. One student, Tara M. Stringfellow has published a book, “Memphis,” which includes quilting in the story.
“Art has the power for transcendence. First of all, I just hope when they look at the quilts, they just appreciate the beauty of them, the richness of the color and the patterns. Some of them are narrative, they tell a story, or they’re a portrait. I hope they’re inspired, just by the beauty and the beauty lifts them out of whatever cares or stress they’re confronting that day,” Vaughn-Manley said.
Vaughn-Manley wants people to rest in the beauty of what one can do with one’s hands. Deeper, she wants people to see how the everyday, utilitarian quilt can be and is more, that it is a symbol of resilience, of taking pieces, which when separate, don’t seem to have much value, but together, have incredible power. Vaughn-Manley believes that narrative is for life in general, that “together, we’re so much more powerful than the fragments.”
For more information about the exhibit, visit tinyurl.com/43tnkrxx.
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