World Of Amish Quilts

World Of Amish Quilts

Review
"The Pellmans' full-color book has intriguing photographs that show how the rhythms and patterns of Amish life are revealed in its most celebrated form of folk art."-Philadelphia Inquirer "Exceptionally colorful and well researched."-Library Journal "This is a truly striking art book and will certainly be of interest to quilt makers and appreciators."-Country Magazine

Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad

Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad

Amazon.com Review
When quiltmaker Ozella McDaniels told Jacqueline Tobin of the Underground Railroad Quilt Code, it sparked Tobin to place the tale within the history of the Underground Railroad. Hidden in Plain View documents Tobin and Raymond Dobard's journey of discovery, linking Ozella's stories to other forms of hidden communication from history books, codes, and songs. Each quilt, which could be laid out to air without arousing suspicion, gave slaves directions for their escape. Ozella tells Tobin how quilt patterns like the wagon wheel, log cabin, and shoofly signaled slaves how and when to prepare for their journey. Stitching and knots created maps, showing slaves the way to safety.

The authors construct history around Ozella's story, finding evidence in cultural artifacts like slave narratives, folk songs, spirituals, documented slave codes, and children's' stories. Tobin and Dobard write that "from the time of slavery until today, secrecy was one way the black community could protect itself. If the white man didn't know what was going on, he couldn't seek reprisals." Hidden in Plain View is a multilayered and unique piece of scholarship, oral history, and cultural exploration that reveals slaves as deliberate agents in their own quest for freedom even as it shows that history can sometimes be found where you least expect it. --Amy Wan

Stitched from the Soul: Slave Quilts from the Antebellum South

Stitched from the Soul: Slave Quilts from the Antebellum South

Review
Includes many illustrations of surviving slave-made quilts, some utilitarian and others wonderful examples of the seamstress's art. (Washington Post Book World)

Stitched from the Soul is an interesting study showing how African culture influenced American quilting as well as commenting on the life of the slave. (Library Journal)

African-American Art by Sharon F. Patton

African-American Art (Oxford History of Art)

From Publishers Weekly (Description on Amazon)

Patton has written an excellent and comprehensive introduction to the historical development of African American visual art. She provides much new information on the art making of both slaves and freemen in the 18th and 19th century while later providing a broad art-historical context for black modernists. Pointing out that crafts did not necessarily precede fine art making during slavery, she examines African retentions (and Indian influences) in 18th-century black ceramics and architecture; black women and quilting; abolitionism and the rise of black landscape painters like Robert Duncanson; and sculptor Edmonia Lewis's black expatriate neoclassicism. Turning to generally better- documented 20th-century black artists, Patton arguably provides the first clear discussion of the relationship (both social and aesthetic) of black modernists to the prevailing mainstream artists and art movements of their time. As is perhaps inevitable, Patton's discussion of the contemporary art scene, while quite competent, is defined as much by the artists she fails to mention as by those she chooses to include. Well researched, scrupulously documented and organized, this lucidly written, fully illustrated book also includes numerous useful sidebars defining art movements, issues or individuals.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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