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The Lonely Palette

Ep. 55 - Harriet Powers' "Pictorial Quilt" (1895-98)

The Lonely Palette

The Lonely Palette

Arts, Podcast, Art, Museum, Painting, Modern Art, Visual Arts, Art History

4.8857 Ratings

🗓️ 29 October 2021

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Quilts, and textiles in general, have a funny way of being overlooked by the fine art world. They’re dismissed as craft, as outsider, as “women’s work,” or as potentially uninteresting museum exhibits. But some quilts, and some quilters, tell their stories, explain our histories, and simply refuse to be denied. This episode was produced in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibition “Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories” is on view until January 17, 2022. See the images: https://bit.ly/3jNT4FZ Music used: The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" Blue Dot Sessions, “Moon Bicycle Theme,” “Stucco Blue,” “Coronea,” “Lumber Down,” “Velvet Ladder,” “Gale” Get tickets to the exhibition: https://bit.ly/3GAli0M Support the show: www.patreon.com/lonelypalette

Transcript

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0:17.0

So in this quilt I see 15 panels, five across, three down, and each panel has some sort of image like maybe a story that it's telling. Each block tells its own story and kind of seems like a maybe like a picture book each section.

0:25.0

I see all the work that they did all by hand that takes time and time

0:32.0

and to be a good one and be able to do it.

0:35.0

It's squares but they're not perfect.

0:38.0

It's not perfect lines. It's sort of,

0:41.0

it looks very handmade and a little wavy, like the person didn't have a ruler.

0:47.0

Looks like there might be a little bit of, let me, applique going on here too,

0:54.0

and I see some embroidery too,

0:58.0

because those eyes are embroidered right there,

1:01.0

right there and right there.

1:02.0

And that's also backstitching which is part of

1:06.1

embroidery. She uses an applique, embroidery and quilting techniques so it

1:12.0

does it everything a little bit of everything. It's amazing actually.

1:16.0

I'm a quilter myself, but this is amazing.

1:20.0

And there's a lot of color, although it's kind of muted except for the oranges, which are very bright.

1:27.0

There are like these people and many of them that are doing little actions, and there's some birds and some other animals and it's kind of childish drawings like child like child shapes.

1:40.0

It's very cool.

1:41.0

You know the, when they discovered drawings and caves these are kind of like the

1:47.7

drawings you see in the caves from early man I think. So I see images of what I think are stories from the Bible.

1:57.0

There's a person looks like falling off a boat,

2:00.0

maybe being swallowed up by a whale, maybe that's a story of Jonah.

2:04.0

One has two of each kind, which I think could be Noah's arc.

...

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