Story Quilts: A Narrative Textile Art
 Story quilting is a traditional American women’s craft where quilts are used as narrative art to tell stories. The story quilt begins with the creator’s choice of material, design, and content. Using familiar scraps of old clothing, women have created story quilts about personal, historical, and cultural events.Story quilts often reflect the personal life of the one who created them. Harriet Powers was born into slavery in 1837 and married at the age of eighteen. We do not know what her childhood was like since it was not recorded; however, she recorded some of her life as an African American slave woman in a story quilt. Harriet Powers also quilted Bible stories; one is a priceless museum piece that resides at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.
 Quilts frequently tell historical events. In 1992, Zora Moore of Oakland, Illinois quilted 16 different events and locations from the life of Abraham Lincoln into an appliquéd and embroidered story quilt. She created each individual story block separately and then joined them together to form the quilt. Among other things, her quilt story depicts Lincoln splitting rails for his father’s cabin and saying goodbye to his stepmother before leaving for Washington to be President. This quilt was part of the exhibition Looking At Lincoln at the Tarble Arts Center, Eastern Illinois University.The narrative quilt reveals culture. Faith Ringgold is known for her painted story quilts (art that combines quilting fabric, painting, and storytelling) that depict African American culture. Her 1985 Street Story Quilt uses imagery to tell of survival and redemption in a Harlem story. An apartment building is shown three times in a story that transpires over decades. Above each window, there are handwritten text panels that tell of a boy named AJ. AJ is ten years old in the first panel where he and his grandmother witness an accident that kills AJ’s mother and four brothers. The central panel tells of a fire set by AJ’s drunken father, who dies in the fire. The final panel is “The Homecoming,” where AJ is a grown, successful writer and actor who returns to pick up his grandmother and take her back to California with him. AJ survives and is redeemed; he never forgets where he came from or who he is. It’s an inspirational tale of Harlem culture. The quilt is on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The personal quilt of Harriet Powers, the historical quilt of Zora Moore, and the cultural quilt of Faith Ringgold as well as these pictures of story quilts are just a few of a vast collection of quilting stories to admire. Story quilts have been around for hundreds of years and enjoyed by people of all ages. This form of narrative art is still a common home based activity today.
 Deb Robertson
Owner
MyLuxuryMattress.com
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