‘No Two’ exhibit finds jazz in quilts Improvisation spawns uniqueness

BANGOR – Throw away your rulers, yardsticks and T squares. Turn your back on the latest quilt magazines and books. Abandon for the moment that stash of $8-per-yard fabric. Take a lesson from Arbie Williams, whose square-in-square quilt is made of brown, tan, green and dark purple flannel set off by three strips of red floral brocade that looks as though, in a former life, it served as draperies. Notice how things in Williams’ quilt don’t line up precisely, point to point, and see how that’s part of what makes the quilt such a delight to look at.

Williams’ quilt is one of 18 in “No Two Alike: African-American Improvisations on a Traditional Patchwork Pattern,” the current exhibit at the University of Maine Museum of Art in downtown Bangor. The exhibit brilliantly illustrates the magic that happens when African-American women of modest means take up the needle to craft bedcovers.

The quilts are part of a collection belonging to quilt scholar Eli Leon of California.

“I began collecting African-American quilts in the 1980s,” Leon said in a telephone interview. “They had a very natural appeal [to me] because I also collect other things made from throwaways – like soda bottles, cans and matchbooks.”

The quilts in the exhibit, made from the 1960s through the 1990s, were stitched by 20 women from East Texas, Northern Louisiana and Southern Arkansas – the region from which Leon’s California quilt making contacts had migrated.

“I was always interested in their history, where they were from and who made them,” Leon said. He was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989 to aid his quest to learn more about the quilts he was collecting, and their makers.

The quilts in the “No Two Alike” exhibit are a vibrant testimony to the visual virtuosity that emerges when need – for something warm that is also a pleasure to behold – basic skills and found fabric combine with the quilters’ ideas of what a quilt is and ought to look like. The makers imbue their quilts with personality, charm, exuberance and individualism.

According to information at Leon’s Web site, quilt maker Arbie Williams was well aware of the visual power inherent in her creations. She said to him, jokingly, “I’m going to be up to something real dangerous when I get through with this. This quilt done killed two people.”

Another quilt maker, Wanda Jones, told Leon that her mother would say when Jones made a “mistake” when she was learning to quilt, “It’s nothin’ about makin’ it a little different. It’s still the same pattern. You just added somethin’ of your own.”

“The quilts are made mostly by uneducated women who have nothing to do with art. I came upon some fantastic quilts. I couldn’t stop myself from collecting them,” Leon said.

Leon noticed how African-American viewers reacted to the quilts at various exhibits and he began to realize that they were reacting to a different visual ideal than non-African-American viewers. He has linked the design roots of a strip quilt made in 1940 by Mary Lue Brown to the Hausa cloth designs of Nigeria.

One quilt in “No Two Alike,” by Bessie Mae Frost, is made entirely of the polyester knit fabric that debuted in the 1960s and 1970s. It is stitched entirely by hand. It fairly shouts with delight and makes the viewer want to shout back with equal delight.

This quilt, Leon said, was one that his group of advisers weren’t sure ought to be included in “No Two Alike.” But Leon liked it so much, he decided to go against the grain and put it in the show.

Linger in front of Maple Swift’s quilt and marvel at what she has wrought from black pinwale corduroy, black widewale corduroy and blue, red and gray plaid flannel that surely began life as men’s work shirts. Consider the two flanges that jut out from a large square of black corduroy. It’s like seeing Swift’s mind at work, flying nimbly about the piece, figuring out how to place each piece to make a pleasing whole.

Muse on the black and white cotton square-in-square quilt created by Gladys “Kitty” Jones. Note how the lack of straight lines and edges, and how the black squares seem to move and tumble. Then let your gaze travel to the adjacent wall to your left and notice how the aquatint of tumbling cubes, “First Quartet – Fourth Quartet,” by artist Mel Bochner, part of a fine arts exhibit also at the museum, echoes Jones’ work. Ask yourself, how is it that the two pieces have so much in common in terms of design and style?

The quilts in “No Two Alike,” said museum director Wally Mason, are about improvisation. Most of the women, he said, talk about learning from their grandmothers to sew and make quilts. He pointed out the unselfconscious aspect of the quilts. Clearly, the quilts are highly individualistic and are infused with unexpected ideas.

Leon said that the improvisation in the quilts is somewhat akin to the improvisation found in jazz, but that it is much less self-conscious. It more accurately corresponds to the improvisation found in the blues and gospel music the quilters listen to, he said.

“It’s fun to open people’s eyes about this art form. People love these quilts,” Leon said. “Especially artists. What they have been studying in art school is exemplified in these quilts.”

Quilts from Leon’s collection have been shown at the Smithsonian Institution and museums throughout the United States.

To learn more about Eli Leon and his work as a quilt collector and scholar, visit www.elileon.com. The quilts also are the subject of the November-December issue of a Fiber Arts magazine article.

“No Two Alike” will be at the UMaine Museum of Art through Jan. 14. Museum hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. The cost of admission is $3. To obtain more information, call 561-3350, or visit www.umma.umaine.edu.

Ardeana Hamlin may be reached at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.