Collaborative pride and a friendly dose of awe play behind Leanne Green’s pleased smile as fellow fiber artist Charlotte Timmons leads an onlooker through the details in the massive 80-by-80 inch “Mississippi” quilt that Timmons spearheaded, put together and quilted, and 38 women had a hand in creating.
The vibrant showpiece serves as a visual “Come on in!” to the showing of 100-plus smaller art quilts that just started its two-year statewide tour with a July 6 opening at the William “Bill” Waller Craft Center in Ridgeland, Miss. The Southern Fiber Artists curated “A Mississippi Quilt Challenge: An Exhibit of Mississippi-Themed Quilts,” which will remain on display at the Craft Center through September, before continuing its journey across the state.
The state’s magnolia and mockingbird symbols anchor the quilt’s core, surrounded by scenes hailing each quadrant of the state as they depict Tupelo, Jackson, Vicksburg and Biloxi. Brilliantly embroidered wool felt circles and hearts stand out like fireworks against a night sky in the dark band around the center. Bright and cheery houses, churches and iconic state shoutouts—university buildings, Barq’s root beer, Hernando water tower, Biloxi lighthouse and more—hug the outer rim. The quilt is as much a sampler of Mississippi as it is a sampler of fiber art techniques.
The goal, Timmons explained, was to showcase the state and have Southern Fiber Artists colleagues collaborate. “What was so exciting was, they got excited as they talked about our state, and the more we talked, ‘Why can’t I add this?’ and ‘Why can’t I add that?” Timmons, who lives in Long Beach, said. Those ideas are stitched together in the final masterpiece.
Showy as it is, it also hits a deeply personal thread. “It looks like home to me,” Green, from Summit, Miss., said.
In one form or another, that’s the feeling behind the dozens of art quilts in the show that draw from surroundings, family memory, history, relationships and local attractions to tout some of the best things about Mississippi.
Cathy Reininger’s slice quilt collaboration divvied up the state’s 11 letters to as many member volunteers, who added their own spin—a pair of shrimp form one “S” and an alligator curves into another, one “I” stands in the midst of 32 Mississippi authors and another stands as a single Windsor ruin.
Southern Fiber Artists started in 2015, spurred by an interest in creating art pieces beyond the boundaries of the traditional bed quilt. The group is a loosely associated network of around 30 active members scattered throughout the state, meeting quarterly at various locations. This project has been in the works for about two years, taking inspiration from Reininger’s presentation of the finished “Mississippi” slice quilt at a meeting.
“This group likes a challenge,” Green said. “Everybody looked at it and said, ‘That’s what our next project challenge should be, to make small Mississippi-themed quilts.’” The agreed-upon size measured 18-by-20 inches, and Green wanted to make it a traveling exhibit.
“Part of the purpose is to make people aware of fiber arts and to get our artwork seen,” Green said. They show their creations to each other, but the paucity of quilt exhibits—a COVID casualty that has been tough to revive, she said—meant a dearth of opportunities for the showcase this topic deserved.
The challenge got off to a slow start, with just 11 works after the first year. The effort took a back seat as Green’s son recovered from a car accident, but as soon as he healed, she picked it back up and even thought of a new spin. “I had taken a road trip with my son and we noticed all of these states that have elaborate postcards on billboards—’Welcome to Knoxville,’ ‘See Rock City,’ ‘Ruby Falls’ and all of that.”
A few Gulf Coast members gave incorporating a postcard-type of theme into the project a shot, but they needed an aspect ratio that fit the postcard look. The 16-by-25-inch size folded into the mix and opened new horizons.
“That kind of became the most exciting thing that we could do, because everybody has a hometown, and something to be proud of about their hometown,” Green said. Many members answered the call, but it became clear they could not cover the entire state, its attractions and heritage just by themselves.
They opened the challenge to others. “I started beating the bushes among other people I knew,” Green said, including Mississippi Quilt Association members and even artists in other media. “We were trying to bring in people from all over the state, and for some of them, it was their first quilt ever. Some of them we’ve helped, and some of them did it all on their own.”
Southern Fiber Artist Jackie Watkins of Madison welcomed her grandchildren—Karoline Erickson, 10, and her brother, Rex, 8, of Great Falls, Va.—into the challenge, and their creations share favorite things in fiber. Karoline’s love of fishing points directly to the state in “Mississippi Vacay” and Rex’s solar system interest twinkles in “Night Sky Over Mississippi,” in the show’s youth category.
Green reached out to Jackson quilter Ravin Lovett to help highlight legendary Mississippi musicians B.B. King and Sam Cooke. “I was encouraged when she pushed me to do those two pieces. I love collage work, and I love printing photos on fabric,” Lovett said, pointing out B.B. King cradling his guitar Lucille in one and Cooke’s handsome smile beaming from the other.
Lovett wrapped in an ode to her parents Allyn and Jerry Hill in a third work, featuring an image from their wedding against a background print of the Jackson State University logo. They met there, in a psychology class. “Of course, Jackson State is important to the fabric of HBCU history in Mississippi,” Lovett said, fondly adding, “It’s how I got here, because if there was no them, I would not be here.” That piece presented yet another chance to shine in a skill she learned in her teens from her grandmother that became a healthy form of therapy for her in young adulthood and that she now employs in her role as an art therapist.
Dianne Noland entered Green’s orbit as a sitter when Green’s mom Polly Thomasson broke her heel in late December. Once they discovered her artistic talent, the two pulled Noland into the challenge. “I’ve never done anything like this before in my life,” Noland, who is from McComb, said. “They just coached me into it.” Her “Pocahontas” pays homage to her roots in that small town and her Cherokee heritage in a quilt taking inspiration from her own painting of a young Native American woman. “She’s one of my perfect things. I just love her.”
Old jeans found new purpose in Myra Cook’s art quilts. “I’ve been doing several of these, just to see if I could make a portrait out of blue jeans, and it works,” Cook said of creations that intend to capture the pure wonder of childhood. In one, her granddaughter, then 4 years old, squats down to play in a puddle in the rain, and in another, her grandson contemplates doing the same thing. Denim scraps faded to different shades add depth and shadow to the kids at play, captured at Cook’s home on a lake in Madison County. “If anything, water and children are a magnetic attraction,” she said.
Art quilt materials reach beyond fabric and thread for 3-D effect and sparkle. Yarn acts like Spanish moss, and Angelina fibers glitter on the water in Dawn Seymour’s bayou scene. In Timmons’ “Gator,” jaunty Mardi Gras feathers fly. Playful city salutes—such as Green’s “Starkvegas” with neon sign and bulldog and Timmons’ Long Beach scene with her beloved pets chilling gulfside—nudge a smile.
Quilting is one of the oldest crafts in the world, Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi board member Rhonda Blasingame said, pointing out a quilt in the show honoring a pirate ancestor who settled on Cat Island. She glanced around, taking in the wide range of art quilts on display. “This is an obvious mash-up of the traditional skills and techniques with the modern. … The old saw about, ‘This is not your grandmother’s quilt’? This is absolutely not your grandmother’s quilt.”
“It shows the progression that craft and even fine craft can make from one generation to the next. We’re still quilting, but it’s not all quilting to put on your bed. We are kind of kicking and screaming and dragging it into the realm of more art than fine craft.”
After its Craft Center show closes at the end of September, “A Mississippi Quilt Challenge” will next be part of a trunk show and workshop at the Gulf States Quilting Association meeting in Gulf Shores, Ala., in October, and go on display at the Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven in November and December.
The tour continues in 2025: Oktibbeha Heritage Museum in Starkville in January; Mississippi Quilt Association spring gathering in Hattiesburg in February; Vicksburg Arts Council at the Firehouse Gallery in March; Bay St. Louis in April, at the Alice Moseley Folk Art Museum or an alternative larger venue to be determined; Oren Dunn City Museum in Tupelo in May. Exhibition plans also include the Downey Gallery in Hattiesburg, date to be determined.
