Image of Florence Bell’s Crazy Quilt on display at History of Colorado Museum (2020)




Image of Quilter Florence Bell from History Colorado Museum (2020)

Grandmother’s Garden, deriving its title from the classic quilt pattern “Grandmother’s Flower Garden,” examines the past and present production of quiltmaking as it relates to United States histories’ from the 19th and 20th centuries. Looking at the materiality of quilts, I am interested in unthreading histories of cotton production under the histories of slavery and share cropping, textile production in New England’s mills, and westward expansion.

Since 2020, I have been working with quilt collections in institutions and meeting and filming with contemporary quilters in the regions where these histories took place: the Southeast, Northeast, and Western states. The film is working in tandem on 16mm and video.

Grandmother’s Garden asks how quilts can move beyond simplistic nationalistic narratives to encompass a clearer picture of women in the US. 

I formally began this project in the summer of 2020 and have filmed in over 12 states and 30 museums, met with over 50 quilters, and filmed hundreds of quilts and related photographs.