Everyone has a story. Some people like to write them, some people like to paint them and some people just talk about them.
And some like to tell their stories within a quilt.
Quite a few people like to quilt, which is how the historical art exhibit “Our Quilted Past” came to the Louisiana Old State Capitol on Saturday.
Jan Sumrall, business manager of the Old State Capitol, said the exhibit tells the stories of two Alabamian women, Elizabeth Heard Bean and her daughter, Leola Heard, who lived through the Great Depression. During this era, resources were scarce and leisure time was a luxury few could afford. Quilting thus became both a functional and a creative outlet for these women.
Today, quilting is predominantly a niche art form, but even those who practice it are sometimes unaware of its roots. Sumrall said her staff brought the exhibit to the Old State Capitol to reach a younger crowd.
“Most young people don’t know what it was like to live in a rural area and not have a lot available to you, so I hope learning about the way these used to be made is as eye-opening to them as it was to me,” Sumrall said.
The quilts are made from feed sacks and empty flour bags and were constructed between 1925 and 1955. Most of them are vibrantly colored and have intricate designs sewn into them. Many of the patterns represent different aspects of their makers’ personalities and heritage. One quilt is emblazoned with the fleur-de-lis, while others are adorned with four-leaved clovers and turtles.
According to the exhibit, sewing the quilts was a tedious process, but finding the materials to make them was an even more daunting task. The Heard women lived on the outskirts of Randolph County, Ala., and shopping was difficult because they lived hours away from the nearest town and had to walk on unpaved roads. They bought most of their sacks from trucks that visited their home about once every two weeks, and they ventured through lawless roads when they needed something the truck didn’t have. In this way, quilting punctuated their otherwise mundane lives with excitement and adventure.
Sumrall said each quilt tells a story about the women who made them, and quilts were used for both warmth and decoration. During the Great Depression, few families decorated their homes with traditional forms of art, like paintings or photographs. Instead, bedrooms served as both places to sleep and as places where beauty could be observed in otherwise purely functional establishments.
“It’s amazing to see that these women were creative enough to take a Depression Era necessity and make art out of it,” Sumrall said.
The exhibit will also feature bonnets, dresses and other textiles made from recycled materials. A reception will be held in the Old State Capitol Building today from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and the exhibit will run until Feb. 28.
“It’s amazing to see that these women were creative enough to take a Depression Era necessity and make art out of it.”
Our Quilted Past tells the story of the American cotton bag industry of the mid-20th century and women's ingenuity in re-using those bags. The exhibit features several quilts, aprons, dresses, and bonnets fashioned from the cotton bags made between 1925 and 1955.
