‘Masters of the Stitch: Threaded Stories’ Spotlights Narrative Quilts by Black Americans

From the nearly abstracted patterns featuring dozens of Black faces in the meticulous work of Sharon Kerry-Harlan to portraits inspired by real events like Donna Chambers’ celebration of President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Masters of the Stitch: Threaded Stories at Claire Oliver Gallery spotlights remarkable narratives in fabric.

The exhibition draws from the collection of Carolyn Mazloomi, founder of the Women of Color Quilters Network, whose strategy over the better part of the last four decades has been to highlight the craft as an artistic expression beyond what the gallery describes as “folk curiosity.” Works simultaneously function “as fine art, historical archive, and cultural testimony, asserting once and for all that Black quiltmaking deserves a central place in the American art canon,” says a statement.

The 12 artists included in the show reference a range of perspectives and stories, from childhood memories to the COVID-19 pandemic to civil rights actions like the Freedom Train. “Black American quilts occupy a singular position in the history of American art: they are simultaneously an intimate domestic practice and a form of public witness,” the gallery says. “For generations, these textiles carried stories that could not always be spoken aloud of family, faith, resistance, grief, and joy.”

Masters of the Stitch: Threaded Stories continues through August 8 in Harlem. You might also enjoy Stephen Towns’ quilted paintings celebrating midcentury leisure in the South and Bisa Butler’s vibrant stitched portraits.

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