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Collector’s bookshelf
the collector’s bookshelf
And Still We Rise: Race, Culture and Visual Conversations
by Carolyn L. Mazloomi
(Schiffer, 2015; ISBN 978-0764349287)
Reviewed by Martha Sielman
Carolyn Mazloomi is among the most influential historians of AfricanAmerican quilts in the United States. Founder of the Women of Color Quilters Network, she recently was the recipient of the 2014 Bess Lomax Hawes NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award. Dr. Mazloomi has organized countless exhibitions of contemporary quilts. This catalog of her most recent endeavor is fabulous.
Wishing to tell the history of African Americans in the United States through art quilts, she invited 69 contemporary artists to choose a historical topic and create an original artwork commemorating an event or individual. Many of the artists chose to make two pieces, for a total of 97 original artworks. Each full-page image of artwork is accompanied by a lengthy artist statement describing the historical event and giving fascinating insights into the artist’s creative process. Two detail images allow for closer examination.
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Lura Schwarz Smith
Coarsegold, California, USA 559-683-3060 | lura@lura-art.com | www.lura-art.com
photo by Kerby C. Smith
Portfolio 22 | Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.
193
Mary Ruth Smith
Waco, Texas, USA 254-296-9495 | mary_ruth_smith@baylor.edu | www.maryruthsmith.com
photo by Sondra Brady
I found the catalog fascinating. There are so many black history milestones and important people that I was never taught about in school, such as Lucy Terry Prince, Frances Ellen Watkins, the Lovings, and Robert Small. I learned a lot of history just by reading through And Still We Rise.
However, the real reason to own this book is the art. My favorite work may be the first piece: 20 and Odd by Carolyn Crump of Houston. The image is incredibly powerful. She has fashioned the ship’s hull (carrying some the first enslaved Africans to America) out of the bodies of the victims. Turn the page and the next piece by Valerie Poitier of Natick, Massachusetts, shows the bodies of African-American slaves visually morphing into the stockade walls that they helped to build, another memorable image.
A truly unique and imaginative art treatment is the piece by April Thomas Schipp of Rochester Hills in Michigan. She has depicted Harriet Beecher Stowe using a dimensional depiction of her period dress. The head and bodice of the portrait are exploding with ideas and images from her seminal novel: Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Michael Cummings from New York has two wonderful portraits in the book: one portraying Harriet Tubman leading her family to freedom and the other of Mae C. Jemison, the first African-American woman astronaut.
The exhibition of And Still We Rise is touring. It premiered at National Cincinnati Museum Center and Underground Railroad Freedom Center, in Cincinnati, Ohio (www.cincymuseum. org/traveling-exhibits/and-still-werise).
Whether you are interested in history or just love seeing great art, this is a must-have addition to your library.
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