Laughter mixed with the steady hum of sewing machines as Candace Thomas addressed a room full of quilters inside the Durham Convention Center in Durham, N.C. Hot irons resided at the front and back of the room to keep a rainbow’s worth of fabrics flattened and at the ready.
“You want to get a length of fabric that’s about a half-inch wide,” Thomas instructed. “You can make a tube, turn it inside out, roll your edges like you would do a purse strap. Whatever shape you like.”
The couple dozen women eyed Thomas’s instructions as they refined their altar boxes, decorated containers roughly the size of a shoe box that can hold a doll or special memory. One of Thomas’s boxes contained a copy of a poem her mother penned in 1948.
“It’s like teaching a cooking class for family,” said Thomas, who started quilting as a high school student in California after watching her aunt sew.
Thomas taught over Juneteenth weekend at the Kindred Spirits Quilting Conference, which brought together African American quilters from across the South. Kimberley Pierce Cartwright, a longtime member of the African American Quilt Circle of Durham, was the one who conceived of the idea for the three-day conference, which featured workshops like the one Thomas headed and a pop-up quilt show where spectators could admire and purchase quilts. The first conference was held in 2023; after this second edition, Pierce Cartwright plans to make it an annual event around each Juneteenth.
The conference brought out quilters for an artistic form that traces back centuries. During slavery, quilts sometimes contained coded messages to guide people along the Underground Railroad. They provided Black women with an outlet for creativity when other forms, like reading and writing, were suppressed or banned. Quilts provided warmth and comfort, and told stories of family history and lineage while showcasing the ethos of making do with what one has.
“To make a quilt, it is an act of security, because I grew up where quilts were currency,” said Jereann King Johnson, whose mother would cover her with a quilt or two on cold nights as a child growing up in Bainbridge, Ga.
“It means different things for different quilters,” she added. “Sometimes it’s a simple act of meditation. Sometimes, it’s an act of persistence. It is bringing all of your knowledge and your spirit to the whole process.”
Pierce Cartwright said some quilts could be made in a single weekend while others take years to complete. Quilting involves stitching together three layers: the top, the batting and the backing.
One of Pierce Cartwright’s quilts showed an array of greens, depicting the crops enslaved people ate like black eyed peas, okra and millet. Another celebrated the cosmic jazz musician, Sun Ra.
As Pierce Cartwright discussed her work, a burst of chuckling erupted from one of the nearby workshop rooms.
“Listen to them, cackling like that in the background,” Pierce Cartwright said. “That does my heart so good because they’re having fun, they’re meeting new people, probably making lifelong friendships.”
Many of the attendees were members of the African American Quilt Circle, a group that started in 1998 and meets every second Saturday of the month.
Torreah Washington who goes by the nickname of Cookie, joked that she was born with a needle in her hand. Her mother, aunts, grandmother and great-grandmother were dressmakers, fashion designers and tailors. In 2009, Washington was selected as one of 44 Master Art Quilters to create a quilt to commemorate President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Quilting has provided an outlet for her to process tragedy. In 2015, Washington had just used the space at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church to host a quilting exhibit when she learned of the mass shooting and hate crime during a bible study that killed nine people and left Washington and her community reeling.
The Reverend Clementa Pinckney was a friend she was set to have lunch with two days before he was killed. Cynthia Graham Hurd, who was also killed, was a librarian for her daughters.
Washington has hosted tribute quilt exhibitions to honor the victims and their families and keep their memories alive. Now she regards passing down her knowledge as a duty, not allowing the art form to die.
“I believe it’s part of my ministry,” Washington said. “It is part of teaching Black women’s history and affirmation. There’s so many of our stories that are not told or are hidden that we don’t know. And if I can tell those stories quietly in my artwork they might be received better than if I’m yelling at somebody.”
By the time of the pop-up show, hundreds had converged into the convention center to admire the work, and to listen to an address from Pearce Cartwright.
“We hope that by the time this is over, you will have found kinship, some healing space and, of course, some quilting energy,” she said. “Let the ancestors be praised, let the quilt speak, let us imagine a better world together.”
Jonathan Abrams writes about the intersections of sports and culture and the changing cultural scenes in the South.
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