Common Heritage Uncommon Quilts - June to July 2016
Click here to see images from the event!
The Montclair Historical Society and the Nubian Heritage Quilters Guild were awarded a Common Heritage grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a quilt exhibition and preservation project that took place on June 11 and 12, 2016. The exhibit ran through the end of July at the Montclair Historical Society’s Crane House and Historic YWCA, 110 Orange Road, Montclair, NJ. All events were free to the public.
Exhibit
Common Heritage: Uncommon Quilts featured quilts made by the Nubian Heritage Quilters using traditional quilts in the Montclair Historical Society’s collection as inspiration. Pairing historic quilts with the Nubian Quilters’ interpretations allowed us to look at both the old and new quilts in a new light. It provided a historic bridge between antebellum quilting traditions and the works of contemporary quilt makers who have reinterpreted classic American quilts. The exhibit kicked off on June 11th and 12th and ran through July. Hands-on demonstrations and workshops ran through the weekend of June 11-12. Quilters of different ages and skill levels had the opportunity to exchange their knowledge of the craft and learn a variety of techniques in the art of quilting.
Digitization
The preservation component of this event allowed visitors to bring quilts form their own homes and get digital copies made of their work by photographer Peter Jacobs.
Visitors were given tissue paper and instructions on how to preserve their quilts. Visitors were contacted after the event to pick up their digital images on flash drives at the Montclair Historical Society.
Quilt digitization took place at the Montclair Historical Society Clark House at 108 Orange Road, Montclair, NJ.
Quilts will be available to view online in the future.
Workshops
- Saturday, June 11 at 10 AM: Quilt Preservation Workshop by textile conservation expert Alison Casteneda
- Saturday, June 11 at 11:30 AM: A Community Conversation on African American Material Culture by Montclair resident Dr. Lillie Edwards
- Saturday June 11 and Sunday June 12, 1-4 PM: The Nubian Quilters will offer free hands-on quilting workshops demonstrating various quilting skills (hand quilting, design-your-own heritage block, quilt binding, image transfer quilt blocks, creating felted quilt blocks, hand-appliqué and yo-yo quilting).
- Sunday, June 26 from 1 to 3 PM: As an offshoot of the project, we will host a poetry reading featuring works inspired by the quilts and quilting process. The reading will be held at the Crane House and Historic YWCA. For more information about the poets who will be there, please check the Montclair Historical Society’s website as the event nears.
See more at: http://montclairhistorical.org/events/nubian-heritage-quilters-exhibition/
