Michelle Schulte can't help speculating about a connection between O’Tesia Harper and Sarah Mary Taylor.
Were they friends? Could they have engaged in friendly competition?
Though the two quilters aren't in Baton Rouge to answer that question, their work provides some clues.
"I always wonder if they knew each other, because they were using these similar motifs in their quilts," Schulte said. "They both did Coca-Cola bottles, and they both used cultural references."
Schulte is curator for the LSU Museum of Art, which is showing quilts by Harper and Taylor, among others, in the exhibit, "One Stitch at a Time: Southern Vernacular Quilts."
The show runs through June 23 and highlights 10 works by African American artists from Gee's Bend, Alabama, along with works by quilters from Mississippi. Though this art form is usually dominated by women, a male artist is included in this mix.
O'Tesia Harper's 'Statue of Liberty' is featured in 'One Stitch at a Time: Southern Vernacular Quilts' at the LSU Museum of Art.
The quilts are on loan by the Doug McCraw Collection out of Alabama, and the Hilliard Art Museum at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
It's easy to understand Schulte's fascination with the quilting connection between Harper and Taylor, especially when walking through the quilt-covered walls of the gallery.
A quilt with repeated blocks of the Statue of Liberty hangs on one end, then on the other, well, there's another quilt with multiple images of Lady Liberty.
Look for Sarah Mary Taylor's 'Statue of Liberty' in 'One Stitch at a Time: Southern Vernacular Quilts' at the LSU Museum of Art.
Look closely at the museum labels, and you'll see one was created by Harper, the other by Taylor. Both lived in Yazoo, Mississippi, so their acquaintance is likely.
Taylor died at age 84 in 2000. Her work is often cited as an influence on such noted quilters of her era as May Liza Jackson and, yes, Harper.
Harper, meanwhile, is alive and well at age 99 in her hometown of Yazoo City.
"They both also put American flags in their quilts," Schulte said. "So, you wonder if their relationship was a fond one or not. But I love the fact that these two ladies were doing these quilts, even if they may have been in competition."
This is the fun part about walking through such a show as "One Stitch at a Time": The quilts represent more than just works of art or a practical tradition of making a bed cover out of scraps to keep warm during winter.
The pieces in this gallery tell stories, not only those translated by the artists through their work but stories of the artists, themselves.
Take Lucy Mingo, for instance. She lived in Gee's Bend, an isolated, rural community southwest of Selma, Alabama, known for its generations of quilting traditions.
Chris Clark's 1982 'Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden' is part of 'One Stitch at a Time: Southern Vernacular Quilts' at the LSU Museum of Art.
What started out as Joseph Gee's plantation during the Civil War was changed to a cooperative farming association called Gee's Bend Farms, Inc. with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's establishment of the 1935 Resettlement Administration. This allowed Gee's Bend residents to become landowners.
The quilt-making tradition flourished in these years.
Then came the civil rights era, and community members became involved in the movement, Mingo among them.
"Martin Luther King Jr. actually visited Gee's Bend at this time," Schulte said. "Lucy Mingo went to see him, and there are all of these wonderful photographs of her with him."
Mingo would join King for the 1965 march in Selma.
"We have a photograph of Martin Luther King talking to the residents of Gee's Bend, because, of course, they were going through suppression," Schulte said. "There was a ferry between Camden and Gee's Bend, and that ferry was taken out to keep the residents from voting. And so, Lucy Mingo's in that crowd, and she was so inspired by Martin Luther King that she took part in the second march in Selma."
Chris Clark's 1995 'Church Scene' crib quilt is featured in 'One Stitch at a Time: Southern Vernacular Quilts' at the LSU Museum of Art.
Later, in March 1966, some 60 quilt makers from Gee’s Bend, Alberta, Rehoboth and surrounding communities met in Camden’s Antioch Baptist Church to found the Freedom Quilting Bee as a way to gain economic independence. All of the makers were descendants of African American slaves, and the Freedom Quilting Bee was one of the few Black women’s cooperatives in the country.
The cooperative resulted in made-to-order contracts with such major retailers as Bloomingdale’s and Sears, Roebuck, and Co.
"Since then, these craftswomen have gained global recognition for their bold, geometric patterns and vibrant colors, with their work being shown in museums across the world," the museum's exhibition label states.
"Their fabric work preserves their ancestral traditions and histories as they continue to design and meticulously craft quilts that retain their collective identities."
"About half of the artists whose work is in this show are still alive," Schulte said. "Almost all of them are story quilts except for three."
There's that word again, "story," and the quilt narratives in this gallery cover everything from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in greens, blues and golds to an African American church service, to the fight for civil rights at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery.
"There's so much going on in the quilt showing the Alabama State Capitol," Schulte said.
Yvonne Wells, an artist from Tuscaloosa, made the quilt.
"You can see there was this incident where somebody crawled up the Alabama State Capitol and took down the Confederate flag," Schulte said, pointing toward the top of the quilt. "And so what made this a big deal is they couldn't figure out who it was, and the next day, the Confederate flag was promptly returned on top of the flags. Yvonne Wells made this quilt to talk about it."
Yvonne Wells' 'Attitude Adjustment' hangs in 'One Stitch at a Time: Southern Vernacular Quilts' at the LSU Museum of Art.
The quilt includes images of Ku Klux Klansmen trying to restore the Confederate flag and a Black person at the bottom of the piece trying to pull the flag back to the ground.
"I think it's Lady Liberty at the Mason-Dixon Line, Gen. Robert E. Lee and Martin Luther King are there, too," Schulte said. "And what's really interesting is you have this little figure who's kicking somebody, and I want to say that maybe they kicked this person out of there. And there's another Klansman with the keys to the capitol."
Also hanging are older, more traditional quilts of geometrical blocks in bold colors.
"In American quilt history, there's a lot of divide between rich and poor," Schulte said. "Quilting was more of a pastime for upper-class ladies," Schulte said. "They'd learned to sew, and they'd sit with their friends and do stitch work. Well, for lower-income households, it was a necessity, because you needed a blanket. You needed to be warm, and clothing wasn't highly accessible. So, if something wore out or ripped, you saved all those scraps, and you made quilt with it."
Which, in the end, tells the story of tradition — a tradition that continues today at Gee's Bend through museum collections, exhibitions and the women who continue to make them.
"One Stitch at a Time: Southern Vernacular Quilts" runs through June 23 at the LSU Museum of Art in the Shaw Center for the Arts, 100 Lafayette St. Admission is $5 for ages 13 and older and free for ages 12 and younger; university students with ID and veterans and their families with military ID are admitted free. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, call (225) 578-3000 or visit lsumoa.org.