You couldn’t ask for a better examination of the significance of Black quiltmaking than Stories in the Seams: A People’s History of Black Quilts and Their Makers. As the writer of Diasporic Threads: Black Women, Fibre and Textiles and editor of Of Salt and Spirit: Black Quilts in the American South, New Orleans-based scholar Sharbreon Plummer brings an unrivaled expertise to her subject, which is much more layered and significant than art history has recognized. “Across time, the variety within Black quilting has been flattened into a single style or story,” Plummer writes in the book’s introduction. “This book pushes against those limiting beliefs.” Divided into three parts—Memory, Method and Medicine—Stories in the Seams chronicles the contributions of quiltmakers and traces their impacts on great artists across a variety of mediums, from writers like bell hooks to visual artists like Romare Bearden. The strength of Plummer’s work lies in her ability to connect Black quiltmaking traditions to artists of all kinds, illuminating connections that have deepened and strengthened both mediums. For example, Alice Walker used quiltmaking as a way to establish the characters in some of her best stories, including her Pulitzer-winning novel, The Color Purple. “As Walker developed the characters for the novel,” Plummer explains, “she felt drawn to create a quilt in tandem with writing. Walker said, ‘The same voices of my ancestors that dictated the narration in the book also guided me in developing the pattern for the quilt.’ ” With beautiful full-color examples of extraordinary quilts alongside historical photographs of the quiltmakers and artists themselves, Stories in the Seams provides unprecedented insight into one of the most important forms of art-making in Black history.
Stories in the Seams by Sharbreon Plummer: Review
