Freeman's project to document African-American quiltmaking in the United States is an ambitious one. He begins with his own history, how the women in his extended family exposed him to both quiltmaking and its magic. Eventually he ends up as a photographer exploring the folkways of Mississippi, and his interest in quilts begins to take over. He ends up moving beyond Mississippi to the rest of the country, and the world.
There are some interesting stories here, but finally, it seems too much for one book. Instead of putting everyone and everything between two covers, it might have been better to focus on a few strands. It was also a problem for me to match narrative with photo as they were often pages apart. Maybe a smaller book with expansive links on a website would work better. One thought I had would be to show family trees with the photos of quilts and makers next to the names. I also would have liked to see more of the actual quilts.
Alice Walker's interview was wonderful, and I thought it summarized Freeman's theme--the beauty of the majority of these quilts comes from the context, the relationships they echo--of home, family, friends. They were made to use, not for hanging in a museum. The aesthetics are secondary, though many are quite beautiful. But the beauty and magic also lies within.
"So it's in the doing, you know, it's really in the doing. It's in the creation. That's where your joy is. It's a gift."
Roland Freeman is tenacious! He spent YEARS traveling around the US researching Black quilters and their stories. The stories are endlessly fascinating.
I was already in love with the quilters of Gee's Bend. I didn't want to put their book down the chute at the library. I handed it to the librarian and told her these were precious old Black ladies and I didn't want them to be banged around in the machinery!
The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters by Sherri Lynn Wood was my introduction to understanding improvisational quilting. She lead me to read Eli Leon's work. His collection introduced me to more extraordinary Black quilters
I was glad I had studied Eli Leon's work with the same subject matter, to give me a basis for understanding Roland's book.
I hope you get as much from these quilts as I did. They are very freeing.
Great Read! I remember so well the day Mr. Freeman sat with my deaf grandmother for her interview. We as younguns as my granny Muh called us, scampered around mesmerized by this “city gentleman”. This book is in all of my family’s libraries! Great job Mr. Freeman. My family thanks you for letting the world in on a part of my families history!
A very informative book. However, about halfway through I felt that some of the quilter's biographies were too short and created a very rushed feel to the study, despite the fact that it took decades to compile.
A COMMUNION OF SPIRITS, African American Quilters, Preservers and Their Stories, in honor of fiber artists of every time & place, some who created masterpieces from discarded feed sacks & beat cotton they themselves picked from fields to make batting for their quilts. The author, Roland Freeman, shares fond memories of being wrapped in his family's quilts as a child, which fed his love for them & led to his project of documenting quilts as part of the USA story. As much a historical journal as a pictorial scrapbook, Freeman traveled the country from coast to coast, visiting quilters both female and male, clubs, communities and guilds. His interviewees include activist Ms. Fannie Lee R. Chaney, mother of civil rights worker James Chaney, murdered in Mississippi in 1964 with Mike Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, freedom riders whose story is told in the movie Mississippi Burning; Ms. Rosa Parks, who, when asked in 1986 if she quilted, replied, "Any good woman my age from Alabama definitely knows how to quilt; activist artists/writers Ms. Maya Angelou, Ms. Alice Walker, Ms. Sonia Sanchez, Ms. Faith Ringgold and Ms. Nikki Giovanni, who uses "quilts as a metaphor...the way our lives are lived. We survive on the scraps, the leftovers from a materially richer society. Quilts are such a banner to black women. Because what they ended up taking was that which nobody wanted, and making something totally beautiful out of it...like the spirituals. We took a bad situation and found a way to make a song..."