The Heritage Quilters operate to support, encourage, and document quilting traditions and activities. The group includes women and men, mostly older adults (one young person) from Warren and Vance Counties. All the group members have strong connections with their community.
Although each member brings their unique touch, the group prides itself on the level of hand quilting expertise it possesses. While some members utilize machines, handwork is always present. Those same stitches have shaped several projects that bring together a spectrum of skills and amplify their love of community and engagement. The Heritage Quilters have enjoyed math and quilting lessons with Warren County fourth graders for over ten years. President Belinda Mack Alston proudly recalls how moved she was by the group’s civic engagement, stating, “I learned a lot more about being involved because they would sit and discuss things that were actually going on in the community. It made me more aware of my surroundings and how people from all walks of life can be active.”
The Heritage Quilters occupy and maintain the Historic Aaron Hendrick House in downtown Warrenton, North Carolina.
“Evolution of Tradition” Heritage Quilters Participants
Belinda Mack Alston
Cathy Alston-Kearney
Margaret W. Bullock
Wallace Evans
Leo Kelly, Jr.
Connie Kenney
Jereann King Johnson
Gail Richardson
Evolution of Tradition: A Collection of Quilted Creative Expressions
Quilts and quilt making are not what they used to be. Technology, available tools, and materials, and innovative techniques all contribute to the evolution of quilting. There is, however, one constant: intended or not, every quilt has something to say, whether about the quilter’s economic and social condition, inventiveness, passions, interests, or available time and materials – there’s a story to tell. The traditional American quilt form served as a cover for warmth and captured the expressiveness of the quilt maker and the times in which the quiltmaker lived.
Quilt historian Gladys-Marie Fry documents the early quilt-making of enslaved African Americans and explains that their quilting was not just for keeping warm but also imbued with techniques remembered from their West African origins, hidden histories, and “the milestones of their times and their own lives.” Today, African American quilters are in the vanguard of expressive and narrative quilts.
“Evolution of Tradition” centers social justice themes, perspectives on historical events, and cultural representations. It includes representations of women in church hats, work hats, and traditional quilt covers. The exhibition highlights quilting as a material culture with no right or wrong approach or competing aesthetics. The quiltmakers in this exhibition hope viewers leave inspired and curious about quilts as conduits for creative expressions connected to the complex times in which we live.
Quilts as Visualized Social Justice
As an art form, quiltmaking can lift both complexities and possibilities into awareness. Social justice extends to critical reflection and response to our divided nation’s myriad social, political, and economic issues. The cloth speaks of freedom, carries symbols of the Confederacy, and highlights banned books. Some quilters draw on religious and cultural expressions, such as “I pray the Lord my soul to keep,” “Gone too soon,” and “Psalm 23,” for it is in faith traditions that meanings of justice are cultivated and internalized.
“Evolution of Tradition” social justice quilts beg our imaginations to wonder and discover quilts not only as social justice narratives but also as understanding for peace and community building.