Customer Reviews

PIECE OF MY SOUL: QUILTS BY BLACK ARKANSANS

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Cuesta Benberry has been a well-respected and internationally known quilt curator and historian for many years. With this book, she again "raises the bar" for those who research and wish to preserve the history of American quilt making. For many years, the dominant critical voices ignored the full range of quilt making by Black quiltmakers of the past. Ms. Benberry now has written and published a thoroughly documented and exciting work that clearly documents that Black quilters were part of the mainstream--not an exotic offshoot. In fact, one could argue that it is just as likely that some of the traditional patterns might have been invented by Black quilters--as easily as we assume that all the patterns were Euro-American inventions!

The State Museum of Arkansas, whose collection she is documenting, is to be congratulated for their support. Most importantly, her book can be used to challenge other state museums, regional quilt collections and national museums to seriously track, document and collect a full range of all types of quilts by Black quilters from the 19th and early 20th century--before this powerful and important legacy is lost forever. As a contemporary Balck artquilter, I am so grateful to Ms. Benberry for her continuing work! This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in the history of American and African American quilt making.

A Piece Of My Soul: Quilts By Black Arkansans showcases more than seventy-five individual pieces of patchwork quilt art in full-color photography. Each is accompanied by Cuesta Benberry's informative commentary as she details the importance of quilting to black Arkansas and the extensive holdings of African American quilts in the Old State House Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas. Enthusiastically recommended reading for students of Black History, southern popular culture, and the needlecraft arts, A Piece Of My Soul explains the quilt's uses, materials, and construction, as well as what each piece featured says about the needlecraft artist and her beliefs.

I am an Arkansans who has recently started quilting and I have learned several of the patterns. I have started my own yo-yo quilt. I love the quilts featured in this book. One of my favorites is plate 13.