<p>Jazz, like quilting, is a woven art form. Both genres produce textural harvests spun from the life fibers of masters of the imagination who create for our contemplation. Quiltmaking, as in jazz, evokes a host of complex rhythms and moods. Some quilt artists listen to jazz music while working on their quilts because the one form of artistic inspiration ignites in the other. When the two forms connect, the creative energy explodes exponentially. Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition releases both the individual particles and the synergistic power of this explosion. The 83 quilts pictured include traditional, improvisational, and art quilts from some of the countries best known African American quilters. Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition unite the two most well known, and popular artistic forms in African American culture jazz and quilts. These quilt artists have harnessed in cloth the spirit of jazz, and let us feel, hear, and see jazz music.</p>

Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition

Carolyn L. Mazloomi

Paper Moon Publishing

<p>Each of us who has the privilege and the joy of seeing the stunning works in Quilting African American Women's History: Our Challenges, Creativity, and Champions must also listen carefully to what these works of art are saying to us. In the words of quilter Tina Brewer, "Listen closely, focus your eyes deeper." The one hundred-one quilts, created by fifty-three women and men, speak of challenges, creativity, and champions of African American women. For assembling this feast for our eyes and providing a narrative that helps us to clearly hear what these works of art are saying, we are indebted to Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, the curator of the exhibition. Let us also acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Denise Campbell, Dr. Mazloomi's colleague in the world of quilting and scholarship about this art form. A striking reality about these quilts that is also true of African American women is this: If you have seen one, you have not seen them all. There are "common threads" in these quilts, just as there are in Black women's experiences with racial and gender oppression and in resistance, in efforts to cast us as "the other." There is also great diversity in how each artist unfolds her quilt--as a compelling narrative, as a statement of resistance, as creative expression--indeed as all of this and more. So too are there differences in how we Black women live through our race and gender, sometimes in communion with and sometimes in confrontation with our particular class, age, religion, sexual orientation, physical abilities and disabilities.</p>

Quilting African American Women's History

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carolyn L. Mazloomi. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Carolyn L. Mazloomi

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carolyn L. Mazloomi. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition

Quilting African American Women's History