Our Winter 2021 Exhibits Celebrate a Centennial

of Women’s Suffrage and a Colorful Trifecta!

 

Dr. Sider with the Deeds Not Words book.The U.S. Constitution and Color take center stage in the Texas Quilt Museum’s winter exhibits Deeds Not Words: Celebrating 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage and Red, White, & Blue. Both exhibits will run January 7-March 21, 2021.

In Deeds Not Words, Dr. Sandra Sider, Curator of the Texas Quilt Museum, and Pamela Weeks, Binney Family Curator of the New England Quilt Museum, collaborated to create a touring exhibition of studio art quilts to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, through which women won the right to vote in national elections.

Twenty-nine award-winning artists from across the United States accepted the invitation to create 28 new works celebrating women’s suffrage, along with one artist whose 1995 quilt on the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments is included.

Subjects include many of the women who are famous for their work in the century-old fight for the vote, but several of the women the artists chose to commemorate are less well known but equally deserving of recognition.

​Federation Gertie (57” x 51”) by Hollis Chatelain. From the exhibit Deeds Not Words.

The exhibition addresses racism in the Women’s Suffrage Movement, depicting several heroic individuals. A comprehensive book containing full-page images of all the pieces with narrative artists’ statements is available through Schiffer Publishing. The book is available for purchase at the Museum Store. This exhibit is sponsored exclusively by eQuilter.com, with additional assistance from Museum co-founders Karey Bresenhan and Nancy O’Bryant Puentes.

The Texas Quilt Museum salutes American patriotism with the rousing exhibition Red, White, & Blue. A total of 24 antique, vintage, and contemporary quilts from the Collection of International Quilt Festival celebrate our national flag.

While most people know that the stripes in the U.S. flag represent the 13 original Colonies and the stars the 50 states, the flag’s color symbolism is not common knowledge.

​Stars and Stripes (73" x 76") c. 1900, artist unknown. From the exhibit Red, White, & Blue.

White is meant to symbolize purity, with red symbolizing valor and hardiness, and blue symbolizing justice and perseverance—the last quality being tested for many months across America during the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Sider comments, “Patriotism can be defined as devotion for and attachment to one’s homeland. What deeper attachment can we find than American quilts that contain the fabric of our nation’s history? Even though not all the quilts in this exhibition have patriotic themes, they all stand proudly to celebrate our country.” This exhibition is supported by the Lucille Gaebler Klein Fund.

 

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