Sewn Together
Two Centuries of Alabama Quilts
January 28 through April 16, 2017
Strip Quilts
Strip quilts are constructed from pieces of fabric (squares or rectangles) that have been assembled in long, narrow strips, and then combined to create a top. Whether placed in a horizontal or vertical orientation, the use of strips in a quilt top echoes the overall geometric form of the quilt itself. The making of strip quilts in the African-American community has been tied by quilt scholars to the aesthetic of the African practice of combining fabric strips woven on narrow, portable men’s looms to make larger pieces of cloth used as clothing, space dividers, tents, and for many other practical purposes. The tradition of strip-quilts in the African-American community dates back well into the nineteenth century.
In the case of strip quilts, the pattern is subservient to the size and type of fabric remnants available to the maker. All manner of scraps of any size can be assembled in strips to create a top, and the skill of the maker in arranging her scraps would determine the visual impact of the final product. Lureca Outland’s Strip Quilt is a classic in this genre. The Sock Top Quilt was assembled in a similar fashion; however, the fabric in this quilt is a collection of “remaindered” tube socks acquired from the quilter’s sister-in-law, who was employed by a sock manufacturer in Fort Payne, Alabama. Thus, the use of materials readily at hand played a starring role in the creation of the quilt. Economy of both material and means in each case leads to a product that demonstrates both the creativity and the ingenuity of the maker.
Left
Strip Quilt, ca. 1993
Lureca Outland (American, 1904–2008)
Boligee, Green County, Alabama
Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, polyester, and wool
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA # 2004.21.16
Right
Sock Top Quilt, ca. 1934
Ada Chitwood Jones
Fyffe, DeKalb County, Alabama
ADAH #93.343.1
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Block Pattern Quilts
The simple geometric device of a square subdivided into four equal sections by an “x” creates a multitude of visual effects depending on size, color, cloth pattern, and scale. This generic quilt pattern is sometimes referred to as Grandma’s Favorite, the name referencing its longstanding history and use.
Louise Norman Reagan of Ramer, Alabama, is believed to have made her version of Grandma’s Favorite in the late 1930s. She enlarged and varied the pattern’s squares by making them “foursquare” and using different fabrics for each quadrant. Her “x” forms are scalloped so that the resulting voids are rounded, quatrefoil shapes. The scalloped bars are a solid fabric that she inscribed with names of her family members and friends, creating the equivalent of a personal “memory book” in the form of a quilt.
Jannie Avant’s Grandma’s Favorite Block, 1990, is a contemporary update, using intensely colored fabrics that complement one another in their brilliant intensity. Her solid pink and yellow squares are grouped to create alternating vertical rectangles—the web of crosses overlaying them is constructed of a brightly striped pattern, which creates blocks that seem to recede into space where the crosses meet.
Reagan’s older quilt (created at the end of the Great Depression) addresses the traditional ties of family and friendship that were the roots of survival and social stability in those dark days. It speaks to nurturing warmth, protection from cold nights, and the communal support system that made life more comfortable. Avant’s quilt reflects that, in more recent times, these textiles are more firmly rooted in personal creativity and a decorative spirit of modernity that might enliven a wall just as easily as a bed.
Left
Grandma’s Favorite Block, ca. 1990
Jannie Avant (American, born 1921)
Brewton, Escambia County, Alabama
Cotton/polyester blend
Gift of Kempf Hogan in honor of Malcolm and Julie Sutherland
MMFA #2004.20.1
Right
Friendship Quilt, ca. 1938-1940
Louise Norman Reagan
Ramer, Montgomery County, Alabama
ADAH #2007.82.1
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Lone Star
These two quilts, created in Alabama almost 100 years apart, are outstanding examples of one of the most enduring patterns produced in the Southern U.S., the Lone Star. Many quilters and quilt lovers consider the popular Lone Star quilt a true tour de force and testament to the maker’s exceptional skill. Experience and supreme attention to the details of construction are paramount in creating a successful Lone Star.
In the 1880s version of this pattern, the colors were chosen to form what appear to be radiating concentric circles. For this quilter, precision and craftsmanship were paramount, and the product is a demonstration of both her skill and her diligence. The twentieth-century Lone Star attributed to Mary Duncan is a riot of multicolored and multi-patterned diamonds, assembled so that the fabrics and colors are scattered throughout the star. The irregular shapes in the quilt’s background disrupt the sense of regularity and balance, and the insurgence of color in the star creates the impression of spontaneity and visual excitement. Thus the Lone Star accommodates the more classic geometry of the nineteenth century while also embracing the explosive expressiveness of twentieth-century style.
Left
Lone Star, ca. 1950
Attributed to Mary Duncan
Pickens County, Alabama
Cotton
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.1
Right
Lone Star, ca. 1880s
Unknown American maker
Alabama
ADAH #88.229.5
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Shape Shifters
When piecing together quilt tops, there are many factors that go into the decisions made by the quilters as they place certain colors or fabrics in specific locations. With geometric tops based on squares or rectangles, the total visual impact may not become completely apparent until after the quilt is finished. The eye bounces from one shape, color, or pattern to another, particularly when they are juxtaposed, and a common result is contrasting shapes and patterns resulting in an extraordinary sense of visual movement.
The makers of each of these quilts pursued such a strategy as they created their tops. All the squares in the Willis quilt were pieced with fabrics cut in strips and placed diagonally, essentially creating a sense of triangles within the square. The individual fabrics were dispersed throughout the quilt, which guides the eye around the top, seeking out various repetitions. By moving the strips from top to bottom and left to right in the squares, the artist further confounds our eyes and creates a surface that seems to visually expand and contract. The Center Medallion quilt, ca. 1930, provides an abstracted visual equivalent to a pattern such as the Lone Star, with a vibrant central shape positioned in a larger rectangular setting. In this quilt, the maker has established a ground of rectangles of varying dimensions and set the oval medallion made of irregularly shaped blue, red, and yellow fabric on the dark center, creating a diamond-shaped negative space in the middle. The effect is surprisingly modern—the medallion appears as an object emerging from the dark void of space.
Left
Center Medallion, ca. 1930
Unknown American Maker
Cotton and rayon
Gift of Kempf Hogan in honor of Joan and John Smith
MMFA #2013.8
Right
Untitled, ca. 1930s
Sarah Gomillion Beasley
Red Level, Covington County, Alabama
ADAH #91.89.2
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Star Patterns
As with any pursuit, practice makes perfect, but it can also make the seemingly imperfect amazing. In the case of these two star-pattern based quilts, each of the quilters’ significant skills in manipulating materials and atypical designs created extraordinary works of art.
Virginia Atkinson Watkins’ child’s quilt has been carefully constructed to contrast the patterns of the fabrics, and their impact by the way in which the individual pieces of brown striped fabric were cut. This technique, known as “fussy cutting,” creates a soft texture at the edges; it was very time consuming, and required a greater amount of fabric than usual in order to match the elaborate patterns within the stars. Each square, and the quilt as a whole, was bordered with a rich, foliate-patterned fabric that visually contrasts with the geometric regularity of the stars. The entire quilt was then stipple stitched (using tiny stitches) to give the overall surface a puckered texture. The complications of construction, the materials required, and skill needed to create this quilt would suggest that, in addition to skill, the maker was blessed with both time and access to abundant resources.
Nora Ezell’s Star Puzzle, 2001, demonstrates her ability to combine large numbers of shapes and colors to suggest elaborate layers in which the forms seem to advance and recede into space. She also plays with the contrast of cool and warm colors to enhance that sense of movement. Shattering the star forms produces a twentieth-century style composition that references abstraction. Ezell was dedicated to her craft of quilt making, and she consistently recorded the hours required to piece and quilt each of her products. She took a great deal of pride in the fact that it was her own hard work as an individual that earned her recognition as one of Alabama’s most accomplished quilters.
Left
Star Puzzle, ca. 2001
Nora Ezell (American, 1919–2007)
Mantua, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2008.9.2
Right
Eight pointed Star, ca. 1860
Virginia Atkinson Watkins
Lowndes County, Alabama
ADAH #86.1849.1
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Pieced Geometrics
These two quilts reflect their relationship to functionality, which is grounded in a rectangular division of space to cover a bed. Each quilt is composed of a series of squares and rectangles, arranged in rows. In the case of the older quilt, the nine squares are identical in size and produce a final product that is essentially a square itself. In Mary Maxtion’s Hotel Window, ca. 1996, the twenty squares are variously scaled and multicolored, producing a vibrant rectangle.
The Whig’s Defeat, 1858, is composed of red and green complementary colors that resonate within the organic leaf patterns and the geometric diamonds. The central diamonds reflect the popularity of plaid cloth in the mid-nineteenth century which could have been salvaged from a lady’s fashionable dress. It is apparent that this particular quilt was “well loved”—it shows staining and wear that have as much to do with use as with age.
Hotel Window, ca. 1996, has a physical inspiration: the horizontal line of windows on a building façade. While a quilt like this one might have been used as bed cover, it is more likely that the maker, Mary Maxtion, knew that it was to be used primarily for decorative purposes. She composed the squares to been seen vertically, without breaking up the surface by folding it over the sides of a bed. The composition itself is a reference to a traditional form; however, it was equally recognized that these quilts should also be appreciated as independent works of art.
Left
Hotel Window, ca. 1996
Mary Maxtion (American, born 1924)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, wool, and taffeta
Gift of Kempf Hogan in honor of Nadine and Walter Ludwig
MMFA #2004.20.4
Right
The Whig’s Defeat, 1858
Unknown American maker
Montevallo, Shelby County, Alabama
ADAH #86.1842.1
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Applique Quilts
Women and girls exhibiting their skills in decorative sewing and embroidery produced many of the most visually spectacular surviving examples of quilts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Mount Ida Quilt was created in 1851 near Talladega, Alabama, as a wedding gift from the twelve women who made the individual squares. This quilt displays the technique of applique, in which pieces of fabric are cut into shapes, and then sewn down to a backing support to create the quilt top. The designs in this quilt take their inspiration from the printed chintz cotton fabrics that originated in India and became popular in England in the seventeenth century. Their popularity spread to the U.S., and American mills began copying chintz designs around 1830. The quilt squares were individually appliqued, then sewn together to form the top and, as a final step, the whole was quilted to a backing. Each square bears the name and, in some cases, the homestead of the woman who designed and created it. Such an elaborately crafted product would have been a symbol of significant social status and wealth bestowed by established members of their community on the young couple.
Nora Ezell is one of Alabama’s most skillful and honored quilt makers, receiving the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship in 1993. Like the Mount Ida Wedding Quilt, Nora’s Necktie Flower Garden, 1994, features an application of flower designs as the primary feature of the top. Both of these quilts required all the skills of their makers—the intricate sewing and embroidery of vining flowers, as well as the tufting of some of the forms, achieve an impressive three-dimensional effect. Ezell’s use of silk men’s ties, various buttons, and costume jewelry results in the creation of an impressive three dimensional achievement, a visual tour de force. These quilts are unique, set apart from the “everyday,” and their workmanship identifies them as prestige objects of outstanding quality.
Left
Nora’s Necktie Flower Garden, ca. 1994
Nora Ezell (American, 1919–2007)
Mantua, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
Polyester, cotton/polyester blend, plastic and wood beads, and cowrie shells
Gift of Kempf Hogan in honor of Bethine Whitney
Mantua, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
MMFA #2005.9.2
Right
The Mount Ida Wedding Quilt, 1851
Women of the Mallory and Welch families
Talladega County, Alabama
ADAH #86.1457.1
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Elaborate Quilting
While the fabric used to make a quilt most frequently is the starting place for its visual impact, occasionally a quilt ends up being more impressive for the quilting itself, or the sewing together of the top and the lining with an insulating layer between them. The quilt made by Abigail Kelly Evans in 1831 was made with whole cloth as a top. The fabric is printed with a repeating pattern of columns and sprays of flowers. While the fabric itself is beautiful, the interest in this quilt is imparted by the quilter’s outline of the entire design with stitching, reproducing the pattern on the back of the quilt. The use of whole cloth suggests that the maker had sufficient resources to purchase a large piece of what would have been expensive fabric and sufficient leisure time to execute the elaborate quilting.
Carole Harris’s Take Me to the River, 2001, also derives visual impact from the artist’s use of quilting, as her stitching suggests the flow of water from a source located on the quilt’s upper left. Harris used earthen-toned fabrics and geometric shapes to piece the left quarter of the top, and a strip of purple fabric visually creates a barrier between this assemblage and a large field of dark fabric. The barrier is broken about a quarter of the way down, and the artist suggests the flow of water by quilting large arcs over and into the dark field. Her composition and the detailed quilting technique play a key role in the theme communicated by her design as well as her title.
Left
Take Me to the River, 2001
Carol Harris (American, born 1943)
Detroit, Michigan
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Gift of Kempf Hogan
MMFA #2004.20.2
Right
Chintz Pillar Print, 1831
Abigail Kelly Evans
Dearmanville, Calhoun County, Alabama
ADAH #93.109.2
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Recycled Materials
Contemporary America is sometimes referred to as a “throw away” society—worn or used consumer goods are more commonly discarded than reused. In the case of quilt construction, however, worn or partially used fabrics are valued resources, and old clothing has traditionally been a significant source of raw material.
In the hand-stitched woolen Powell Quilt, the materials appear to have been fabrics originally used as men’s suiting. Since clothing wears very selectively, and fashion also dictates its useful lifespan, old men’s suits, for example, would be a ready source of material existing in a household. The top’s simple bar pattern (a variant of a strip quilt) was quilted on the diagonal in a pattern sometimes called Baptist Fan. The fabrics used suggest that it probably dates from between the 1890s and 1910.
In the mid-twentieth century, Catherine Sommerville, from Aliceville in Pickens County, Alabama, utilized worn blue jean cloth to create a quilt composed of various geometric forms. On one side she used a pattern known as Log Cabin (also called a Pig Pen Variation) and on the other a checkerboard pattern. The various types of jeans fabric is faded from frequent wearing and washing, and evokes the lives the people who wore the clothing—it speaks to hard work, and the need to conserve and reuse valuable resources.
Left
Log Cabin/Pig Pen Variation, ca. 1950-1960
Catherine Sommerville (American, 1870–active ca. 1960)
Aliceville, Pickens County, Alabama
Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, and polyester
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.19
Right
The Powell Quilt, ca. 1890s-1910
Unknown American maker
Dallas County, Alabama
ADAH #2011.208.1
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Agriculture
When Alabama became a territory of the United States in 1817, families migrating from the old Atlantic seaboard colonies of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia settled what were previously woodlands occupied by Native Americans. These settlers brought a tradition of agriculture with them—homesteading for small farmers, as well as the slavery-dependent plantation system producing cash crops such as cotton on a larger scale. Subsequent to the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the State’s agricultural base shifted dramatically to a system of family farms, sharecropping, and tenant farming. Alabama was and remains an economy that is dependent on agriculture.
Elizabeth Wages Butler’s 1870 quilt exemplifies the importance of this agricultural foundation in both its materials and imagery. According to family tradition, the quilt was made from cotton that was grown locally, and dyed with natural, plant-derived colors. While most large-scale textile production was located in the Northeastern US, smaller farms and plantations still produced their own cloth in Alabama. The Sun, Moon, and Stars design reflects the importance of the cycles of nature and seasons through phases of the moon in transit. Celestial references such as the stars also connect the quilt’s imagery to the cycles of day and night. In earlier eras, agricultural labor such as planting and harvesting were timed to coincide with lunar cycles as well as seasonal calendars.
Mary Lucas’ 1970’s quilt also contains stars, as well as what seems to be the repeated appliqued stylized image of a farmer with a hoe. She includes flower imagery, thus linking the world of nature in both the stars and flowers, with the human farmer who is dependent on nature to produce his crop.
Left
Stars and More, ca. 1975-1980
Mary Lucas (American, 1926–2009)
Pink Lily, Autauga County, Alabama
Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, and polyester
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.
Right
Sun, Moon, and Stars, ca. 1870
Elizabeth Wages Butler
Covington County, Alabama
ADAH #92.142.1
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Patriotism
References to patriotism, both national and local, are prevalent in quilts made by Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The emblem associated with many of these patriotic quilts is the star, probably most often intended as a reference to the stars found on the U.S. flag or the battle flag of the Confederacy (popularly known as the Stars and Bars.)
Todd’s mid-nineteenth-century quilt features 16 squares, each centered with a segmented circle with its wedges made of red, green, and a yellow patterned fabric. This color combination was particularly fashionable in the nineteenth-century South. Each star shape at the circles’ center was identified with a paper label that named a state of the Union, many (but not all) of them Southern states. Possibly it was intended that these labels would be replaced by an embroidered designation as a finishing step. Like the Mount Ida Wedding Quilt, this quilt also references the immense popularity of printed cotton fabrics in the nineteenth century. The border is predominantly red fabric with exotic floral forms in green, blue, and yellow. This type of pattern is generically called Palampore after designs originally created in India and made highly popular by the export trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in both Europe and America.
Mary Maxtion of Boligee, Alabama calls her quilt Patriotic Stars referencing its red, white, and blue color palette. At first glance it appears that the repeated star pattern is symmetrical, but on closer inspection she has inserted devices that change the pattern to serve a purpose, such as the extra bars at the bottom of the first row to even out its length. She also breaks up the symmetry by incorporating two blocks that contain a red star on a blue background and a blue star on a red background in the corners instead of white. Such practices are common among African-American quilt makers who tend to infuse a greater sense of optical excitement into their designs by interrupting symmetry and the use of saturated colors.
Left
Patriotic Stars, ca. 1993
Mary Maxtion (American, born 1924)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.10
Right
Patriotic Quilt, ca. 1844-1852
Mrs. E. Todd
Cambridge, South Carolina (?)
ADAH #86.1458.1
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Symmetry
While some contemporary quilts are intentionally “improvisational,” incorporating elements that are intended to break up a standard symmetry, others follow a traditional repetition of forms to create a uniform pattern. These two examples, a Rising Sun (or Mariner’s Compass) pattern quilt from around the 1870s, and a quilt titled Stars, Diamonds, and Triangles, 1993, by Boligee quilter Floydzeller Graves, are exacting in their geometry, creating stunning visual designs.
Both quilters were consistent in their use of colors and fabrics, repeating shapes and colors at an identical scale throughout. Each quilt required significant patience and skill to cut and piece (or applique) the individual elements of the starburst forms, as well as the triangles and diamonds. The Mariner’s Compass is composed of squares divided by strings of cloth with rectangles at the crosses; such a quilt could be pieced by one quilter or by multiple fastidious makers and then combined to make a top. In Graves’ case, the composition is made up of an overall pattern of squares that suggest the compositional ability and vision of a single maker.
Left
Stars, Diamonds and Triangles, 1993
Floydzeller Graves (American, 1922–2011)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.3
Right
The Rising Sun, ca. 1870s
Martha Martin Adams
Shelby County, Alabama
ADAH #2006.128.1
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Illusionism
Catherine Johnston Roberts’ Carpenter’s Wheel, late 1870s, demonstrates that illusionism was an element of nineteenth-century quilt making as much as it was in the twentieth century. The juxtaposition of the three colors of diamond shapes—brown, black, and cream—create the optical illusion of three-dimensional snowflakes connected by a string of two black diamond shapes. In the voids, the quilter has sewn an equally elaborate design of irises in vases. The stitching itself creates texture by following the outline of the design, creating “stuffed” shapes, as well as tiny stitches creating a textured ground.
Mary Maxtion’s Single Log Cabin (Courthouse Steps Variation), 1987, pursues illusionistic intent by structuring the length of the strips from longest to shortest from the edge of the quilt into its center. Her juxtaposition of colors and patterns enhances the sense of dramatic recession into space.
Left
Single Log Cabin (Court House Steps Variation), 1987
Mary Maxtion (American, born 1924)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Gift of Anna Lowder and Harvi Sahota
MMFA #2004.21.12
Right
Carpenter’s Wheel, ca. 1870s
Catherine Johnston Roberts
Clay County, Alabama
ADAH #2008.116.1
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Color and Pattern
The most accomplished quilters understand the visual impact of both color and pattern in making a successful quilt. These two quilts each contrast the colors red and blue, and the scale of the patterns, and the colors’ “temperatures,” create a lively, stimulating effect. The red is a “warm” color that advances out toward the viewer; the opposite is true of blue—as a “cool” color, it appears to recede.
In Roberta Jemison’s Tombstone Quilt, the quilter layered a large “x” shape made up of red diamonds atop a field of blue strips arranged in a traditional “housetop” or “pig pen” pattern. That is, the longest strips are placed around the outside edge, and the sizes become smaller as they move toward the center, which leads the eye to interpret a recession into space. Varying the blue tones in the background intensifies the contrast and enhances this effect. In this case, the eye sees at least three distinct patterns: that created by the red diamonds, that created by the blue recessive background, and the four large equilateral triangles created by the red “x.”
The Wandering Foot quilt is an even more confounding collection of patterns made by the repetition of layered squares and circles. The “foot” is the three-part leaf shaped element that makes up the two forms. When the squares are placed, the feet “overlap” and combine to create an elaborate collection of curved squares and pinwheel shapes. Unlike the Tombstone Quilt, there is a strict regularity to the pattern that establishes a unified and balanced image. While the quilting plays less of a role visually in the Tombstone, in the Wandering Foot the quilter has sewn a four-part pattern into the white elements of the quilt further building its splendid textures and emphasizing the nature of this as a textile of extraordinary quality.
Left
Tombstone Quilt, ca. 1994
Roberta Jemison (American, born 1928)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Polyester and cotton/polyester blend
Gift of Kempf Hogan
MMFA #2005.9.5
Right
Wandering Foot, 1870
Emillia Harrison Daniel
Crenshaw County, Alabama
ADAH #2007.185.1
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Strip quilts are constructed from pieces of fabric (squares or rectangles) that have been assembled in long, narrow strips, and then combined to create a top. Whether placed in a horizontal or vertical orientation, the use of strips in a quilt top echoes the overall geometric form of the quilt itself. The making of strip quilts in the African-American community has been tied by quilt scholars to the aesthetic of the African practice of combining fabric strips woven on narrow, portable men’s looms to make larger pieces of cloth used as clothing, space dividers, tents, and for many other practical purposes. The tradition of strip-quilts in the African-American community dates back well into the nineteenth century.
In the case of strip quilts, the pattern is subservient to the size and type of fabric remnants available to the maker. All manner of scraps of any size can be assembled in strips to create a top, and the skill of the maker in arranging her scraps would determine the visual impact of the final product. Lureca Outland’s Strip Quilt is a classic in this genre. The Sock Top Quilt was assembled in a similar fashion; however, the fabric in this quilt is a collection of “remaindered” tube socks acquired from the quilter’s sister-in-law, who was employed by a sock manufacturer in Fort Payne, Alabama. Thus, the use of materials readily at hand played a starring role in the creation of the quilt. Economy of both material and means in each case leads to a product that demonstrates both the creativity and the ingenuity of the maker.
Left
Strip Quilt, ca. 1993
Lureca Outland (American, 1904–2008)
Boligee, Green County, Alabama
Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, polyester, and wool
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA # 2004.21.16
Right
Sock Top Quilt, ca. 1934
Ada Chitwood Jones
Fyffe, DeKalb County, Alabama
ADAH #93.343.1
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Block Pattern Quilts
The simple geometric device of a square subdivided into four equal sections by an “x” creates a multitude of visual effects depending on size, color, cloth pattern, and scale. This generic quilt pattern is sometimes referred to as Grandma’s Favorite, the name referencing its longstanding history and use.
Louise Norman Reagan of Ramer, Alabama, is believed to have made her version of Grandma’s Favorite in the late 1930s. She enlarged and varied the pattern’s squares by making them “foursquare” and using different fabrics for each quadrant. Her “x” forms are scalloped so that the resulting voids are rounded, quatrefoil shapes. The scalloped bars are a solid fabric that she inscribed with names of her family members and friends, creating the equivalent of a personal “memory book” in the form of a quilt.
Jannie Avant’s Grandma’s Favorite Block, 1990, is a contemporary update, using intensely colored fabrics that complement one another in their brilliant intensity. Her solid pink and yellow squares are grouped to create alternating vertical rectangles—the web of crosses overlaying them is constructed of a brightly striped pattern, which creates blocks that seem to recede into space where the crosses meet.
Reagan’s older quilt (created at the end of the Great Depression) addresses the traditional ties of family and friendship that were the roots of survival and social stability in those dark days. It speaks to nurturing warmth, protection from cold nights, and the communal support system that made life more comfortable. Avant’s quilt reflects that, in more recent times, these textiles are more firmly rooted in personal creativity and a decorative spirit of modernity that might enliven a wall just as easily as a bed.
Left
Grandma’s Favorite Block, ca. 1990
Jannie Avant (American, born 1921)
Brewton, Escambia County, Alabama
Cotton/polyester blend
Gift of Kempf Hogan in honor of Malcolm and Julie Sutherland
MMFA #2004.20.1
Right
Friendship Quilt, ca. 1938-1940
Louise Norman Reagan
Ramer, Montgomery County, Alabama
ADAH #2007.82.1
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Lone Star
These two quilts, created in Alabama almost 100 years apart, are outstanding examples of one of the most enduring patterns produced in the Southern U.S., the Lone Star. Many quilters and quilt lovers consider the popular Lone Star quilt a true tour de force and testament to the maker’s exceptional skill. Experience and supreme attention to the details of construction are paramount in creating a successful Lone Star.
In the 1880s version of this pattern, the colors were chosen to form what appear to be radiating concentric circles. For this quilter, precision and craftsmanship were paramount, and the product is a demonstration of both her skill and her diligence. The twentieth-century Lone Star attributed to Mary Duncan is a riot of multicolored and multi-patterned diamonds, assembled so that the fabrics and colors are scattered throughout the star. The irregular shapes in the quilt’s background disrupt the sense of regularity and balance, and the insurgence of color in the star creates the impression of spontaneity and visual excitement. Thus the Lone Star accommodates the more classic geometry of the nineteenth century while also embracing the explosive expressiveness of twentieth-century style.
Left
Lone Star, ca. 1950
Attributed to Mary Duncan
Pickens County, Alabama
Cotton
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.1
Right
Lone Star, ca. 1880s
Unknown American maker
Alabama
ADAH #88.229.5
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Shape Shifters
When piecing together quilt tops, there are many factors that go into the decisions made by the quilters as they place certain colors or fabrics in specific locations. With geometric tops based on squares or rectangles, the total visual impact may not become completely apparent until after the quilt is finished. The eye bounces from one shape, color, or pattern to another, particularly when they are juxtaposed, and a common result is contrasting shapes and patterns resulting in an extraordinary sense of visual movement.
The makers of each of these quilts pursued such a strategy as they created their tops. All the squares in the Willis quilt were pieced with fabrics cut in strips and placed diagonally, essentially creating a sense of triangles within the square. The individual fabrics were dispersed throughout the quilt, which guides the eye around the top, seeking out various repetitions. By moving the strips from top to bottom and left to right in the squares, the artist further confounds our eyes and creates a surface that seems to visually expand and contract. The Center Medallion quilt, ca. 1930, provides an abstracted visual equivalent to a pattern such as the Lone Star, with a vibrant central shape positioned in a larger rectangular setting. In this quilt, the maker has established a ground of rectangles of varying dimensions and set the oval medallion made of irregularly shaped blue, red, and yellow fabric on the dark center, creating a diamond-shaped negative space in the middle. The effect is surprisingly modern—the medallion appears as an object emerging from the dark void of space.
Left
Center Medallion, ca. 1930
Unknown American Maker
Cotton and rayon
Gift of Kempf Hogan in honor of Joan and John Smith
MMFA #2013.8
Right
Untitled, ca. 1930s
Sarah Gomillion Beasley
Red Level, Covington County, Alabama
ADAH #91.89.2
Learn more (QR Code?)
Star Patterns
As with any pursuit, practice makes perfect, but it can also make the seemingly imperfect amazing. In the case of these two star-pattern based quilts, each of the quilters’ significant skills in manipulating materials and atypical designs created extraordinary works of art.
Virginia Atkinson Watkins’ child’s quilt has been carefully constructed to contrast the patterns of the fabrics, and their impact by the way in which the individual pieces of brown striped fabric were cut. This technique, known as “fussy cutting,” creates a soft texture at the edges; it was very time consuming, and required a greater amount of fabric than usual in order to match the elaborate patterns within the stars. Each square, and the quilt as a whole, was bordered with a rich, foliate-patterned fabric that visually contrasts with the geometric regularity of the stars. The entire quilt was then stipple stitched (using tiny stitches) to give the overall surface a puckered texture. The complications of construction, the materials required, and skill needed to create this quilt would suggest that, in addition to skill, the maker was blessed with both time and access to abundant resources.
Nora Ezell’s Star Puzzle, 2001, demonstrates her ability to combine large numbers of shapes and colors to suggest elaborate layers in which the forms seem to advance and recede into space. She also plays with the contrast of cool and warm colors to enhance that sense of movement. Shattering the star forms produces a twentieth-century style composition that references abstraction. Ezell was dedicated to her craft of quilt making, and she consistently recorded the hours required to piece and quilt each of her products. She took a great deal of pride in the fact that it was her own hard work as an individual that earned her recognition as one of Alabama’s most accomplished quilters.
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Star Puzzle, ca. 2001
Nora Ezell (American, 1919–2007)
Mantua, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2008.9.2
Right
Eight pointed Star, ca. 1860
Virginia Atkinson Watkins
Lowndes County, Alabama
ADAH #86.1849.1
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Pieced Geometrics
These two quilts reflect their relationship to functionality, which is grounded in a rectangular division of space to cover a bed. Each quilt is composed of a series of squares and rectangles, arranged in rows. In the case of the older quilt, the nine squares are identical in size and produce a final product that is essentially a square itself. In Mary Maxtion’s Hotel Window, ca. 1996, the twenty squares are variously scaled and multicolored, producing a vibrant rectangle.
The Whig’s Defeat, 1858, is composed of red and green complementary colors that resonate within the organic leaf patterns and the geometric diamonds. The central diamonds reflect the popularity of plaid cloth in the mid-nineteenth century which could have been salvaged from a lady’s fashionable dress. It is apparent that this particular quilt was “well loved”—it shows staining and wear that have as much to do with use as with age.
Hotel Window, ca. 1996, has a physical inspiration: the horizontal line of windows on a building façade. While a quilt like this one might have been used as bed cover, it is more likely that the maker, Mary Maxtion, knew that it was to be used primarily for decorative purposes. She composed the squares to been seen vertically, without breaking up the surface by folding it over the sides of a bed. The composition itself is a reference to a traditional form; however, it was equally recognized that these quilts should also be appreciated as independent works of art.
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Hotel Window, ca. 1996
Mary Maxtion (American, born 1924)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, wool, and taffeta
Gift of Kempf Hogan in honor of Nadine and Walter Ludwig
MMFA #2004.20.4
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The Whig’s Defeat, 1858
Unknown American maker
Montevallo, Shelby County, Alabama
ADAH #86.1842.1
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Applique Quilts
Women and girls exhibiting their skills in decorative sewing and embroidery produced many of the most visually spectacular surviving examples of quilts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Mount Ida Quilt was created in 1851 near Talladega, Alabama, as a wedding gift from the twelve women who made the individual squares. This quilt displays the technique of applique, in which pieces of fabric are cut into shapes, and then sewn down to a backing support to create the quilt top. The designs in this quilt take their inspiration from the printed chintz cotton fabrics that originated in India and became popular in England in the seventeenth century. Their popularity spread to the U.S., and American mills began copying chintz designs around 1830. The quilt squares were individually appliqued, then sewn together to form the top and, as a final step, the whole was quilted to a backing. Each square bears the name and, in some cases, the homestead of the woman who designed and created it. Such an elaborately crafted product would have been a symbol of significant social status and wealth bestowed by established members of their community on the young couple.
Nora Ezell is one of Alabama’s most skillful and honored quilt makers, receiving the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship in 1993. Like the Mount Ida Wedding Quilt, Nora’s Necktie Flower Garden, 1994, features an application of flower designs as the primary feature of the top. Both of these quilts required all the skills of their makers—the intricate sewing and embroidery of vining flowers, as well as the tufting of some of the forms, achieve an impressive three-dimensional effect. Ezell’s use of silk men’s ties, various buttons, and costume jewelry results in the creation of an impressive three dimensional achievement, a visual tour de force. These quilts are unique, set apart from the “everyday,” and their workmanship identifies them as prestige objects of outstanding quality.
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Nora’s Necktie Flower Garden, ca. 1994
Nora Ezell (American, 1919–2007)
Mantua, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
Polyester, cotton/polyester blend, plastic and wood beads, and cowrie shells
Gift of Kempf Hogan in honor of Bethine Whitney
Mantua, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
MMFA #2005.9.2
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The Mount Ida Wedding Quilt, 1851
Women of the Mallory and Welch families
Talladega County, Alabama
ADAH #86.1457.1
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Elaborate Quilting
While the fabric used to make a quilt most frequently is the starting place for its visual impact, occasionally a quilt ends up being more impressive for the quilting itself, or the sewing together of the top and the lining with an insulating layer between them. The quilt made by Abigail Kelly Evans in 1831 was made with whole cloth as a top. The fabric is printed with a repeating pattern of columns and sprays of flowers. While the fabric itself is beautiful, the interest in this quilt is imparted by the quilter’s outline of the entire design with stitching, reproducing the pattern on the back of the quilt. The use of whole cloth suggests that the maker had sufficient resources to purchase a large piece of what would have been expensive fabric and sufficient leisure time to execute the elaborate quilting.
Carole Harris’s Take Me to the River, 2001, also derives visual impact from the artist’s use of quilting, as her stitching suggests the flow of water from a source located on the quilt’s upper left. Harris used earthen-toned fabrics and geometric shapes to piece the left quarter of the top, and a strip of purple fabric visually creates a barrier between this assemblage and a large field of dark fabric. The barrier is broken about a quarter of the way down, and the artist suggests the flow of water by quilting large arcs over and into the dark field. Her composition and the detailed quilting technique play a key role in the theme communicated by her design as well as her title.
Left
Take Me to the River, 2001
Carol Harris (American, born 1943)
Detroit, Michigan
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Gift of Kempf Hogan
MMFA #2004.20.2
Right
Chintz Pillar Print, 1831
Abigail Kelly Evans
Dearmanville, Calhoun County, Alabama
ADAH #93.109.2
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Recycled Materials
Contemporary America is sometimes referred to as a “throw away” society—worn or used consumer goods are more commonly discarded than reused. In the case of quilt construction, however, worn or partially used fabrics are valued resources, and old clothing has traditionally been a significant source of raw material.
In the hand-stitched woolen Powell Quilt, the materials appear to have been fabrics originally used as men’s suiting. Since clothing wears very selectively, and fashion also dictates its useful lifespan, old men’s suits, for example, would be a ready source of material existing in a household. The top’s simple bar pattern (a variant of a strip quilt) was quilted on the diagonal in a pattern sometimes called Baptist Fan. The fabrics used suggest that it probably dates from between the 1890s and 1910.
In the mid-twentieth century, Catherine Sommerville, from Aliceville in Pickens County, Alabama, utilized worn blue jean cloth to create a quilt composed of various geometric forms. On one side she used a pattern known as Log Cabin (also called a Pig Pen Variation) and on the other a checkerboard pattern. The various types of jeans fabric is faded from frequent wearing and washing, and evokes the lives the people who wore the clothing—it speaks to hard work, and the need to conserve and reuse valuable resources.
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Log Cabin/Pig Pen Variation, ca. 1950-1960
Catherine Sommerville (American, 1870–active ca. 1960)
Aliceville, Pickens County, Alabama
Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, and polyester
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.19
Right
The Powell Quilt, ca. 1890s-1910
Unknown American maker
Dallas County, Alabama
ADAH #2011.208.1
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Agriculture
When Alabama became a territory of the United States in 1817, families migrating from the old Atlantic seaboard colonies of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia settled what were previously woodlands occupied by Native Americans. These settlers brought a tradition of agriculture with them—homesteading for small farmers, as well as the slavery-dependent plantation system producing cash crops such as cotton on a larger scale. Subsequent to the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the State’s agricultural base shifted dramatically to a system of family farms, sharecropping, and tenant farming. Alabama was and remains an economy that is dependent on agriculture.
Elizabeth Wages Butler’s 1870 quilt exemplifies the importance of this agricultural foundation in both its materials and imagery. According to family tradition, the quilt was made from cotton that was grown locally, and dyed with natural, plant-derived colors. While most large-scale textile production was located in the Northeastern US, smaller farms and plantations still produced their own cloth in Alabama. The Sun, Moon, and Stars design reflects the importance of the cycles of nature and seasons through phases of the moon in transit. Celestial references such as the stars also connect the quilt’s imagery to the cycles of day and night. In earlier eras, agricultural labor such as planting and harvesting were timed to coincide with lunar cycles as well as seasonal calendars.
Mary Lucas’ 1970’s quilt also contains stars, as well as what seems to be the repeated appliqued stylized image of a farmer with a hoe. She includes flower imagery, thus linking the world of nature in both the stars and flowers, with the human farmer who is dependent on nature to produce his crop.
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Stars and More, ca. 1975-1980
Mary Lucas (American, 1926–2009)
Pink Lily, Autauga County, Alabama
Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, and polyester
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.
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Sun, Moon, and Stars, ca. 1870
Elizabeth Wages Butler
Covington County, Alabama
ADAH #92.142.1
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Patriotism
References to patriotism, both national and local, are prevalent in quilts made by Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The emblem associated with many of these patriotic quilts is the star, probably most often intended as a reference to the stars found on the U.S. flag or the battle flag of the Confederacy (popularly known as the Stars and Bars.)
Todd’s mid-nineteenth-century quilt features 16 squares, each centered with a segmented circle with its wedges made of red, green, and a yellow patterned fabric. This color combination was particularly fashionable in the nineteenth-century South. Each star shape at the circles’ center was identified with a paper label that named a state of the Union, many (but not all) of them Southern states. Possibly it was intended that these labels would be replaced by an embroidered designation as a finishing step. Like the Mount Ida Wedding Quilt, this quilt also references the immense popularity of printed cotton fabrics in the nineteenth century. The border is predominantly red fabric with exotic floral forms in green, blue, and yellow. This type of pattern is generically called Palampore after designs originally created in India and made highly popular by the export trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in both Europe and America.
Mary Maxtion of Boligee, Alabama calls her quilt Patriotic Stars referencing its red, white, and blue color palette. At first glance it appears that the repeated star pattern is symmetrical, but on closer inspection she has inserted devices that change the pattern to serve a purpose, such as the extra bars at the bottom of the first row to even out its length. She also breaks up the symmetry by incorporating two blocks that contain a red star on a blue background and a blue star on a red background in the corners instead of white. Such practices are common among African-American quilt makers who tend to infuse a greater sense of optical excitement into their designs by interrupting symmetry and the use of saturated colors.
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Patriotic Stars, ca. 1993
Mary Maxtion (American, born 1924)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.10
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Patriotic Quilt, ca. 1844-1852
Mrs. E. Todd
Cambridge, South Carolina (?)
ADAH #86.1458.1
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Symmetry
While some contemporary quilts are intentionally “improvisational,” incorporating elements that are intended to break up a standard symmetry, others follow a traditional repetition of forms to create a uniform pattern. These two examples, a Rising Sun (or Mariner’s Compass) pattern quilt from around the 1870s, and a quilt titled Stars, Diamonds, and Triangles, 1993, by Boligee quilter Floydzeller Graves, are exacting in their geometry, creating stunning visual designs.
Both quilters were consistent in their use of colors and fabrics, repeating shapes and colors at an identical scale throughout. Each quilt required significant patience and skill to cut and piece (or applique) the individual elements of the starburst forms, as well as the triangles and diamonds. The Mariner’s Compass is composed of squares divided by strings of cloth with rectangles at the crosses; such a quilt could be pieced by one quilter or by multiple fastidious makers and then combined to make a top. In Graves’ case, the composition is made up of an overall pattern of squares that suggest the compositional ability and vision of a single maker.
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Stars, Diamonds and Triangles, 1993
Floydzeller Graves (American, 1922–2011)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
MMFA #2004.21.3
Right
The Rising Sun, ca. 1870s
Martha Martin Adams
Shelby County, Alabama
ADAH #2006.128.1
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Illusionism
Catherine Johnston Roberts’ Carpenter’s Wheel, late 1870s, demonstrates that illusionism was an element of nineteenth-century quilt making as much as it was in the twentieth century. The juxtaposition of the three colors of diamond shapes—brown, black, and cream—create the optical illusion of three-dimensional snowflakes connected by a string of two black diamond shapes. In the voids, the quilter has sewn an equally elaborate design of irises in vases. The stitching itself creates texture by following the outline of the design, creating “stuffed” shapes, as well as tiny stitches creating a textured ground.
Mary Maxtion’s Single Log Cabin (Courthouse Steps Variation), 1987, pursues illusionistic intent by structuring the length of the strips from longest to shortest from the edge of the quilt into its center. Her juxtaposition of colors and patterns enhances the sense of dramatic recession into space.
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Single Log Cabin (Court House Steps Variation), 1987
Mary Maxtion (American, born 1924)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Cotton and cotton/polyester blend
Gift of Anna Lowder and Harvi Sahota
MMFA #2004.21.12
Right
Carpenter’s Wheel, ca. 1870s
Catherine Johnston Roberts
Clay County, Alabama
ADAH #2008.116.1
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Color and Pattern
The most accomplished quilters understand the visual impact of both color and pattern in making a successful quilt. These two quilts each contrast the colors red and blue, and the scale of the patterns, and the colors’ “temperatures,” create a lively, stimulating effect. The red is a “warm” color that advances out toward the viewer; the opposite is true of blue—as a “cool” color, it appears to recede.
In Roberta Jemison’s Tombstone Quilt, the quilter layered a large “x” shape made up of red diamonds atop a field of blue strips arranged in a traditional “housetop” or “pig pen” pattern. That is, the longest strips are placed around the outside edge, and the sizes become smaller as they move toward the center, which leads the eye to interpret a recession into space. Varying the blue tones in the background intensifies the contrast and enhances this effect. In this case, the eye sees at least three distinct patterns: that created by the red diamonds, that created by the blue recessive background, and the four large equilateral triangles created by the red “x.”
The Wandering Foot quilt is an even more confounding collection of patterns made by the repetition of layered squares and circles. The “foot” is the three-part leaf shaped element that makes up the two forms. When the squares are placed, the feet “overlap” and combine to create an elaborate collection of curved squares and pinwheel shapes. Unlike the Tombstone Quilt, there is a strict regularity to the pattern that establishes a unified and balanced image. While the quilting plays less of a role visually in the Tombstone, in the Wandering Foot the quilter has sewn a four-part pattern into the white elements of the quilt further building its splendid textures and emphasizing the nature of this as a textile of extraordinary quality.
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Tombstone Quilt, ca. 1994
Roberta Jemison (American, born 1928)
Boligee, Greene County, Alabama
Polyester and cotton/polyester blend
Gift of Kempf Hogan
MMFA #2005.9.5
Right
Wandering Foot, 1870
Emillia Harrison Daniel
Crenshaw County, Alabama
ADAH #2007.185.1
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