Nora Ezell, a quilter in the African-American tradition renowned for her storytelling panels and for vividly colorful abstract works, died Sept. Ezell, a daughter of a steelworker in Birmingham, was already well known in quilting circles when, in the early 1990s, she gained wider recognition after the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute commissioned her to produce “A Tribute to the Civil Righters of Alabama. She received a National Heritage Fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1992 and a Folk Heritage Award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 1990. Named for a bend in the Alabama River, south of Selma, the Gee’s Bend quilters have been featured on national television, showing quilts using bold color swatches that evoke abstract paintings. Ezell’s adventures involved mixing and elaborating on well-known traditional patterns among them Log Cabin, Dresden Plate, Bear Paw and Drunkard’s Path in her own complex creations. read more

The exhibition will contain a wide variety of quilts, including several examples of traditional Manx 19th and early 20th century quilts from the collections of Manx National Heritage. The exhibition will also contain contemporary examples of modern Manx patchwork and quilting produced by local quilters together with work by the South Africa quilter, Helen Granville. In conjunction with the exhibition, Manx National Heritage is staging a patchwork and quilting competition and is inviting people on the Island to submit examples of their own work, the best of which will be selected for display in the exhibition. The theme of the competition is Stitching Through the Years The Heritage and Art of Mann with entrants able to use the Island’s natural and man-made heritage as well as its artistic heritage as inspiration for their work. Patchwork is a craft which does not recognise any age boundaries and can be enjoyed by everyone regardless of their age, as has been shown by the number of local schools who took part in workshops at the Manx Museum in the summer term. read more

It’s what can only be described as a painting in fabric — a near photographic, impressionistic rendering of a swatch of human life, formed by swatches of cloth shaped as feet, a nose, dappled shadow, light, whatever. She lays the tracing paper over a piece of white muslin cotton backing, where it will remain, weighted with plastic bags of lentils and green split peas, until the applique work is completed. Sowada holds a light yellow cloth up to a cutout piece of the gray photocopied image as she decides what color will represent sunlight atop the girl’s foot. She cuts the cloth around the photocopied piece of a foot and peels the paper off of the Wonder Under on the back of the cloth. read more

The exhibition will contain a wide variety of quilts, including several examples of traditional Manx 19th and early 20th century quilts from the collections of Manx National Heritage. The exhibition will also contain contemporary examples of modern Manx patchwork and quilting produced by local quilters together with work by the South Africa quilter, Helen Granville. In conjunction with the exhibition, Manx National Heritage is staging a patchwork and quilting competition and is inviting people on the Island to submit examples of their own work, the best of which will be selected for display in the exhibition. The theme of the competition is Stitching Through the Years The Heritage and Art of Mann with entrants able to use the Island’s natural and man-made heritage as well as its artistic heritage as inspiration for their work. For example the colours of the Manx landscape may inspire someone to produce a quilt in purple, yellow and grey to reflect the Manx heather, the gorse flowers and the Norse crosses. Patchwork is a craft which does not recognise any age boundaries and can be enjoyed by everyone regardless of their age, as has been shown by the number of local schools who took part in workshops at the Manx Museum in the summer term. read more