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Word for Word

Square roots

By SUSAN ASCHOFF
Published January 31, 2005

	[Times photo: Bill Serne]
	Sangoyemi Ogunsanya of the Arts Center says African-American quilts have a “rhythm, a sort of syncopation.” The quilt in the background is her favorite. She especially likes the middle brown square on the left.
	Patterns of improvisation Two exhibitions of vintage African-American quilts show how women created uncommon beauty from common scraps of fabric.

The quilts on display in shows in St. Petersburg and Tampa tell stories. They speak of their African-American makers, of industriously putting every scrap of fabric and second of time to use. But the quilts say more. Their colors and patterns recall African roots. Some designs are maps for runaway slaves. A log-cabin pattern, its center squares in black, became a flag signaling safe harbor when hung out to air.

A local artist who has collected more than 30 African-American quilts shared some of his treasures with the Arts Center in St. Petersburg for "Grand Ma's Hands: One Hundred Years of African American Quilting." Quilts at the Tampa Museum of Art's "Signs & Symbols: African American Quilts" include several from the Gee's Bend area of southwestern Alabama.

Sangoyemi (the S is pronounced sh) Ogunsanya, assistant curator of education at the Arts Center, reads the quilts' stories. Here she talks about her favorite.

- SUSAN ASCHOFF, Times staff writer

This is the oldest quilt in the collection. It was done in the 1880s and was made in Kansas City, Mo. I think it's my favorite because of the history that is attached to it.

African-Americans made quilts for themselves but they also made quilts for their masters and mistresses. They made quilts in two different styles. For their mistresses, they made the European, symmetrical quilting. The quilts they made for themselves they made in an aesthetic that came from Africa.

It's a really great example of how you can make a large textile out of little scraps of fabric.

It's also a really wonderful example of strip quilting, which is a tradition that the African-Americans took right out of Africa, from the strip weavers. African textiles were woven in strips, and the strips were sewn together, and you see that same technique translated over to quilts.

Another characteristic of African-American quilting is improvisation: They would throw something in that was just a little bit different and it would energize the piece.

It's a very different aesthetic. The European aesthetic was based on a very symmetrical pattern, where everything's balanced out: the form, the symmetry and the color. But the African-American quilting was based more on African textiles, which always encompassed improvisation, a rhythm, a sort of syncopation that was just part of the culture. You see it in the music, in the dance, in the art, in the carvings and also in the textiles. And you see it in the African-American quilts - that rhythm.

These colors are pretty, the reds and the yellows. They're definitely working intentionally. The quilting on this one isn't fancy.

I think they date the quilt from the fabric. They test the fabric. They even check it for human hairs, and they test the human hairs to see if it was African-American hair, to see who made it.

There aren't many examples left of quilts made by African-Americans for their own use. Most of those quilts were lost. A lot of them just wore out. A lot of them were stolen. During the Civil War, the soldiers would come through and steal their quilts. A lot of them were sold off for money. A lot of them they just had to abandon. The time right after the Civil War was a very dangerous period for black people and very often they had to leave their homes and run for their lives and leave all their belongings behind.

This is my favorite square (far left, middle), because it's so subtle, with the different browns.

I just think that's a really beautiful little square.

[Last modified January 28, 2005, 12:10:04]