What are folk arts? They are traditions that are usually handed down within families or communities from one generation to another. Folk arts take many forms, extend to all cultures, and cross time. Many traditions we call "folk art" today began as skills necessary to everyday life. Young people often served as apprentices to master carpenters, blacksmiths, spinners, and weavers while learning a trade. Young girls learned cooking and sewing skills early in life, as these were duties they would be responsible for as adults. As forms of communication, folk arts can tell us much about groups of people during a given time period. See if you can add to this list:

On this page, we'll discuss one type of folk art, quilting, in depth, and show you how to investigate local and regional history while incorporating the creative arts.

Quilting

The history of quilts and quilting in America is rich and varied, influenced by many different ethnic groups and individual quilters. This "history" is, in fact, almost exclusively a "herstory." If in fact the way a quilt is made tells the story of its maker, and the times in which its maker lived, then in America, the stories told by quilts are usually women's stories. Sometimes these stories, written in fabric not in words, are the only stories surviving of women who may have had no other voice or creative outlet.

Quilts have many stories to tell. Below are just some of the many meanings surrounding quilts and quilt making through time.

Giving Voice to a Visual Art: 21 Ways a Quilt Can Have Meaning

1 Personal expression from people whose voices are not usually heard such as women and slaves. In some cases, the quilts they made are the only record of their creativity, personality, and thought that survived.

2 A way to honor and reflect nature. Quilters sometimes used natural things, like leaves and orange peels, as templates to cut shapes for their quilt blocks. Also emulated in quilt patterns are flying geese, streaks of lightning, stars in the sky, and the furrowed fields of the countryside. In addition, Harriet Powers, a female slave, recorded astrological phenomena in her quilt blocks, such as "the day the stars fell".

3 A way to reflect the quilter's surroundings, such as the Log Cabin pattern, as well as Courthouse Steps, Grandma's Flower Garden, Small Baskets, and Sun Bonnet Sue.

4 A social activity. Quilting bees provided a chance to gossip, talk to other women, have fun and even court, while still looking and feeling busy and industrious. Quilting parties were essential "fun time"for slaves who often were provided with food, drink, and music after the quilting was done. Quilt competitions were also good excuses to attend county and state fairs, and thus socialize with distant neighbors.

5 A way to share information and advice about child rearing, marriage, practical issues, and to comfort and encourage each other. During quilting parties, slaves told and retold their oral lore which helped teach traditional African morality, values, strategies for survival, rites of passage, and humor.

6 A political forum. Quilters often discussed politics during quilting parties which later showed up in the names of patterns such as Burgoyne Surrounded, Whig's Defeat, and Clay's Choice. Quilters also showed patriotism with patterns containing red, white, and blue, stars and stripes, and whole flags. In addition, the Lone Star quilting pattern commemorated the formation of the state of Texas. Quilting parties sometimes were used as an excuse for slaves to get together to plan escapes, or as a way for masters to lure runaway slaves home to recapture them. During the days of the Underground Railroad, quilts with black fabric hung over a clothesline indicated a "safe house" for runaway slaves. Today, the AIDS Memorial Quilt Project helps to keep the disease in the spotlight, attracting funding and political attention to the cause.

7 A necessary activity to keep the family warm, especially during hard times such as the Depression, slavery, and pioneer days. Slave clothes were often so mended and remended as they wore out that they resembled patchwork "quilts" themselves!

8 A way to beautify the house, especially in the absence of other niceties, such as in log cabins, slave quarters, or during the Depression. During the Victorian period, elaborate crazy quilts made of lace, silk, satin, and other fragile but beautiful materials made an ornate house even more lavish.

9 A way to show social status, wealth, or amount of leisure time, such as during the Victorian crazy quilt period. Also, in the antebellum South, plantation mistresses used slave labor to produce elaborate appliquéd quilts to show their social status.

10 A way to show readiness to marry or potential skill as a wife. The completion of her first "good" quilt signaled a young girl's entrance into womanhood and marriagability.

11 A place to carry or hide children. Slaves often used quilts to carry children to and from the fields and to wrap them up while they worked. Sometimes a runaway slave, or one being sold to another plantation, kept her family together by stealing away with her own children hidden in a quilt.

12 A way to hold on to and perpetuate the past or another way of life. Slaves used African symbols, such as crosses, coffins, and the color red symbolizing the Shango religious cult from Nigeria in quilts made for their masters and themselves. Quilters in the 1920s responded to rapid cultural change by looking to older quilt patterns for stability. Westward moving settlers often were unable to take many personal belongings on their journey, but quilts were justified as bedding, and were kept as souvenirs of their old way of life back East.

13 Recycling, being thrifty, using up scraps. During the Depression and the pioneer days, quilts were made out of any available fabric, such as surplus sock tops, men's ties, flour and feed sacks, underwear, or old clothes. Slaves often used the ends of threads from their master's looms,thrown away scraps of fabric, and even raw wool pulled off of briar bushes where it had caught when sheep had been driven through!

14 Ties to family and friends. During the 1840s-1860s, album quilts and signature quilts became popular as friendship gifts. Pioneers valued quilts as ties to friends back East, and during the Victorian period, crazy quilts were embellished with mementos and sentimental messages. Today, the AIDS Memorial Quilt Project reminds the world of individual people who have died from AIDS, using blocks made by friends and family to honor a loved one.

15 Honoring a famous person or commemorating an important cultural event, such as quilt patterns depicting Burgoyne Surrounded, Whig's Defeat, or Clay's Choice. The Log Cabin block emerged during Lincoln's presidency to honor his "common" origins.

16 A way to make money. Slaves often used their quilting skills to make extra money to buy supplies, or in some cases, to buy their own freedom! Quilters during the Depression sold their skills for food or money. Before the Civil War, quilts often were raffled off to support the abolitionist cause, and during the war to provide supplies for the troops. After the war, quilting was a viable profession for ex-slaves. Today, quilts are raffled off to make money for charities such as the Ronald McDonald House and breast cancer research.

17 Necessary for commemorating life's stages. Quilts often were used in baptisms (slaves), used to wrap the dead for burial (pioneers, slaves), and given for weddings and births of children.

18 Symbolizing the mixing of cultures. European quilting spread to colonized lands producing such works as a Native American beaded buckskin quilt and a Tahitian appliqué.

19 An indication of religious beliefs. Sometimes quilters made Bible story quilts depicting appliquéd scenes from the Bible. The Amish quilted in a "Godly" manner, rejecting patchwork, where you cut up pieces of cloth and sew them back together, as "prideful". Slaves used African religious symbols and colors in quilts they produced.

20 Depicting local history or events, Harriet Powers, an ex-slave, made "story quilts" that reproduced local happenings and astrological phenomena.

21 AS ART to hang on the wall, or to express yourself in a painterly fashion. Some art quilts are from the Victorian period, but most are modern. Victorian period art quilters most often painted small oil paintings on quilt blocks to add to the intricacies of an ornate crazy quilt. Quilters today make patterns that mimic well- known works of art by painters such as Monet, Mamet, Dali, VanGogh, and Matisse. Quilters today also quilt in other artistic styles, such as "kaleidoscope" in which the finished quilt uses jewel tones, and fractured shapes fit closely together to mimic what is seen through the eye of a kaleidoscope.


Click here to read A Short History of Quilting in America.