Obama presidency stitched in quilt show
BY KARA SPAK kspak@suntimes.com January 11, 2012 3:08PM
Diana Bracy’s quilt, titled “44th President and First Lady,” is part of the “Journey of Hope in America: Quilts Inspired By President Barack Obama,” exhibit running Jan. 16-May 13 at the DuSable Museum of African American History.
If you go
◆ “Journey of Hope in
America: Quilts
Inspired By President Barack Obama”
◆ Jan. 16-May 13
◆ DuSable Museum
of African American
History, 740 E. 56th Place, Chicago
◆ Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday.
◆ Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors and students, $3 for ages 6-11 and free for children under 5.
◆ (773) 947-0600; dusablemuseum.org
Article Extras
Updated: February 14, 2012 8:07AM
A historic moment stitched in time — the election of America’s first black president — is stitched onto more than 50 interpretive quilts in a new exhibit at Chicago’s DuSable Museum of African American History.
“Journey of Hope in America: Quilts Inspired by President Barack Obama,” opens Jan. 16,
the official holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“The exhibition itself commemorates not just a political aspect but a moment in history with the first African-American president in the United States,” said Charles Bethea, DuSable’s chief operating officer and curator. “You won’t walk into an exhibit that feels like a political rally even though this happens to be an election year. What you will see is a sense of pride in American history.”
You will also see dozens of quilts created by fabric artists around the country.
“Aesthetically, it’s just a gorgeous exhibition,” Bethea said. “It’s head and shoulders above a lot of other fabric work I’ve seen personally.”
“Journey of Hope in America” was curated by Carolyn Mazloomi, a self-taught quilt maker and a quilt historian with a doctorate in aerospace engineering. Founder of the Women of Color Quilters Network, Mazloomi, who lives in West Chester, Ohio, put out a call for Obama-related quilts for the exhibit that first premiered in Washington, D.C., in 2008, the week of Obama’s inauguration.
“I told them I didn’t want to see 44 quilts of the president,” she said. “They had to go deeper than that. They had to tell the deeper story. It’s not just about President Obama. You have to talk about, as an artist, whose shoulders the president stands on. The show is about history. How did we get from the slave ship to the president?”
“There are quilts that have some of Obama’s campaign slogan on them,” Bethea said. “Other quilts are about the road to the White House, America’s civil rights movement and the like.”
Bethea is anticipating great interest in the exhibit and hopes it brings first-time visitors to the DuSable.
“From the caliber of the pieces themselves I’m not certain the average person is going to walk in and think quilt,” Bethea said. “It’s striking to see the wonder of the work all done in fabric.”
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