Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 102; Carolyn Mazloomi interview, part 2 of 3

what is important for the empirical data well i i look at a quote makers says culture there is because there's a long history of quilt making in this country and i want to see it carried forth to the next generation and because most of the stories within it our african american quilt community and barricades and tell the story of our culture what can be more important the and people seeing these quilts and noting history and it's important because we as a people i have our footprint noted on this campus and as i'm what's called american history so people have to know the role that we play and that we were here and we

contributed positively to our history here in this country so it's important from that aspect to local leaders that are really creating a quilt is like to me we're sure are they making that quill pen and in the making of that quote and i speak as an artist do you have memories of your history and it's always good it's everything to know who you walk and where you come from and how far you've come you cannot forget all of these lessons all of these historical

lessons make us the people that we ought to be at so weak willed but history is buried there seems to be here to talk about gold well first of all we did we you have to think too about the history of crafts and i i start with young people it's very difficult to interest young old in to in doing anything with their fans okay and this is so tedious work in a fast paced world and a young folk art interested in our this craft necessarily because of its slowness it's repetitive

mass i am it's just the timbre of the times and we you know we we're only what twelve percent of the population ok so yeah as with any crack you really you have to love it to want to be a part of that harm so for us i guess is about trying to interest more young people in yemen and doing this and making queer eye well the network that women of color quilters network harris classes that we offer young people around the united states this is a national organization and around the country we have classes that we offer young people in new york charleston chicago our home

oakland california here in columbus so these programs are tied to advocacy programs some of them worked some of the quilt makers work with key heads with special disabilities our son work with high risk youth we air arm abstinence is taught at ivy awareness we have another program we're he adds from juvenile system are taught quilt making so there's a lot of other educational components attached to it which woods is a good paying our quilting is at the center i love these programs so hopefully this way we're able to attract a new generation and this old art

form and while on the third chapter where call a huge burden on the airline historically many would you see when you i found that the women of color quilters network over twenty five years ago and i found that there was the need for an organization to educate african american quilt makers about the cultural significance of the work that they create as well as the monetary value of what they create african american quilts are among the most popular quilts and so far is out collectibles day and i found in my travels twenty twenty five years ago i would

go to art galleries and and see quilts that were just priced through the roof they were very they were very expensive but then when i met quilt makers i would find that the quote was had he won their quilts away practically because they hadn't no monetary value attached to them a quilted did not see the quilts as art the squeals are just the quills that they made were utilitarian quills just something to keep me warm soul there was no value attached to them no cultural significance attached to them solve the quilts were leaving the african american community and i saw that really there would be nothing left for the future generations and i believe in leaving something for our children leaving something for future generations so the average quote maker didn't know especially the

quilt makers in the rule south bay did not know so there needed to be an organization to inform the palm and let them go about the history of quilt making in this country and let them know that they're quilts were worth money let them know that there is value in what they create and an importance attached to it so it's we have the women of color quilters network and since then it's morphed not only into a program that arm is about saving quilt making within the culture but also it's morphed into a social and economic development program for women that want to sustain themselves and make a difference in their lives so how does the vernacular

visceral loathing bills is found in ohio and things like that the women of color quilters network i envisioned as a home ok because african american quilts look different from all the traditional american quilts you don't find that many african americans in quill deals a quilt mainly in the church or they quote by them sales and isolation they and when they would join quilt deals because they're quilts look different from everybody else's quilts baked they'll be very comfortable i'll solve the network is about having a home we're your quilts are accepted all smiles the wheels are accepted all steel levels are excepted a hand the quilt makers quilting what their brothers and sisters they all they get that they have the culture in

common and it's a second home a great day for me and out of seventeen kain colter the women of color quarters met workers may even a huge difference in the way african american quilts are seeing because we we have shows at museums around the country actually around the world and people get a glimpse love african american quoting him it's that that

along with the full spectrum that can be found within the community so it's an education as too the styles of quilts found in the community but it's more solid education about african american culture and history because he's the quills tell the story of african americans in every facet of their lives in every every just every aspect everything that affects their lives from slavery to present day soul are the network has been about educating the public as well as preservation of an art form where i'm coming from like

i'm in a hometown or was the height of their whole thing they'll have like a certain style it's like hackett store areas he is an excessive but with their airports that doesn't necessarily happen there's that is it's not a regional style ok we have to go back to this theory of tithing of african american quilts early on to scour is viewed african american quilts tested in the end wal mart category of improvisational quilt which is a piece quilt that is made without benefit of pattern and it's just thrown together sort of haphazard way they end it was the quills were characterized by bright bold colors asymmetrical peace in large states they just to hold them together

a and signs and symbols that related back to an african american an african art heritage the signs and symbols world suppose to be in these improvisational wilson this was one of the marked characteristics of these african american quilt but as i say that's not that's not necessarily the norm you could find african americans that make traditional quilts traditional european quilts alm art quilts contemporary quilts i have a huge quilt collection they and you find all types of quills i had historic wills that are made by african americans our mind in dating back to the early nineteen hundreds i have quotes from the civil rights

era arm that were made by some quite well known people i have quilts that our art quilts an abstracted nature him in contemporary quilts and lots of story quilts sold he defined everything within the collections so again an african american quilt has a quilt made by an african american because you might find et in the first battle in what is about to go in there what keeps me quilting or the stories i'm very excited to get the stories maybe get the quilt made so people can look at it and

see the stories and hear what the state through my quote may well there is one awesome story behind one of my wealth two of my favorite quotes one is a portrait of billy holiday and i love this woman's music i love her voice and she was such a tortured soul her life was not content and happy life but tamils the old that she was able to say and and just makes such beautiful music even list tortured soul god's gift shine through this one won a and so i chose to

celebrate billie holiday's life how by creating a portrait of her because i am well i love her music so she should be celebrated alm she's trying to think of the title of the second clue that sale is now thinking sing you know with iraq and alm seeking comfort and finding paying deals with the fact that many korean women were armed taken and used as comfort women are paid off during world war two a and their plight has come up

to the united nations so many times they're seeking but now let's hit by japan that they were missed you used and treated as sex slaves and imprisoned calm and it's it's a it's a state story what happened to these women you know they would just misused then discarded then treated like my dear ol so i wanted to do something i wanted to make a quilt to commemorate the less through giving comfort women and bring attention to the plight of these women who were seeking summit

restitution and that now it's meant to what happened to them so all in this quilt you see an asian woman her back is turned to the quilt and she's a symbol of all these hands up thousands of women that went through the years and facing the quilt our three faces of the women women past that were brought into this system because there's as comfort women i am it's important to detail the stories from mean because people here just don't know they don't have a clue and sometimes aren't interested in anything but what's happening here in this country and not thinking necessarily about what's

happening outside of the united states a n i feel whatever adversely affects women around the world it affects us as women because we are all united in and we all have a special place as women in the scheme of things women are the first teachers and we hold a very powerful position in the scheme of things because we influenced all of humanity and one woman is and free whether she's in africa or india or where ever okay it it adversely affects women everywhere our because we're all the same and we should all support each other at all but leave each other our home to see that women are able to attain

their equal right alma going all women should be educated because again it goes back to their position is as first teachers you know you want to do the best for humanity so until women and for you and me do right by women that's a problem the billie holiday live the colors are man's more rising oh i'll play the colors for the billie holiday quilt arm is more rising it's home i'll shade of blue and that for me is her personality and her music ok she's a blue person her

music is blue or music a deeper music as sol star again a lot oh it's a baby and her voice her voice when she delivers delivered a song you could hear the sameness and her voice and he knew that she'd seen hard times that was in the camera of voice so she was a blue person so her portrait isn't blue a man to me their color sets that collar is billie holiday and that that's one of my favorite quotes

that it speaks for itself as very dramatic so when you see it you know it speaks for the senate there i'm going to i will give you our ct of high resolution images are whoa ok well i one of my favorite quotes is strange fruit and again on the school deals with billie holliday ended her singing the songs strange fruit which really wasn't an owl it was a the consummate

protest song strange fruit so i chose to depict that in a quilt about a decade ago there was a book written about lynching in this country and this is what strange fruit the song strange fruit addresses lynching in this country army lynching photography was quite a booming business art in the early nineteen hundreds a hand in this quilt is pictured a lynching scene and on one side of the quill there's billie holiday singing the song strange fruit a man in the middle the air our palm a group of neo in clams outfit is i'm from louisiana in and let a child of the

civil rights era and witness all sorts of things that time but i can remember reading oh about clan activity throughout the south is at that time there were incidents we're there was klan involvement in mansions so that's pictured on the squirrel as i say it one of the reasons i make wilson i make narratives to call attention to be history of african americans in this country so that quilt details in one episode in this country's history ol and being a child of the civil rights movement that's that's very important for me calm

because it helped shake my life the activities of the sixties and early seventies all because we were in the middle of it we were in they covered all these early events there i cannot forget and even more so to date with what's going on politically we are what we experience we are what we are having made his home in iowa where the hangar where you walk through now what is your sense and see them i knew i have a sense of pride that our microbes are in museums are all

the erie in important places it makes me feel great but it also makes me feel good that just the average person as them as well because if the quilts brain comfort and enjoyment to the people that have them then that's the most important place you can appreciate what i've created it's important if you can understand the message that i'm trying to convey it's important if by any chance your life is changed because of a message that you see in my quilts its import if you become more aware of the situation that you'd never known about before then that's a good thing that i feel my job is done a few years ago i made a series of quilts on female circumcision it simple people had never heard of it

but again this is a situation that's come up time and time again through the united nations through the meanings of women's conferences on a global level and so many people have not heard of it here so if you have learned anything from looking at mike wilson hearing the stories behind the quills then i've done my job as a quote maker that you've learned something he'd taken something away that's a good beer ok oh my well and this is part of you said that your legacy to your values and it uses your legacy to your older voters will reach old age he says