What bliss – a colorful bliss, that is! This weekend I had the opportunity to visit our very own Museum of Fine Arts where I spent hours soaking up the colors and designs of quilts as displayed in the exhibit “Quilts and Color: The Pilgrim/Roy Collection.”
As I walked through the exhibit and admired the quilts’ playful combinations of colors and patterns, I was transported back to the land of my birth, South Africa. Memories of the much-admired artistic endeavors of the local tribes, notably for me, the Basuto (buh-soo-too) and the Ndebele (en-da-bee-lee) quickly came to mind. I found myself comparing the striking similarities in the artistic expression of yester-year’s American women and that of the African women of the last decade – so much in fact, that later I decided to look at them side-by-side.
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The Basuto’s expression of art is rife with symbolism and unique brand markings in earthy colors that are predominantly found on the walls of their abodes. Like many communities directly dependent on the land, the Basuto seek protection and intervention from the Greater Good (in their case, their Ancestors) for their crops and their well-being. The Basuto designs are simple color forms enhanced by texture. Different colors and patterns call for different occasions while also depicting differing statuses. (The latter is true for their ceremonial beadwork as well.)
Traditional Basuto blankets – quilt
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As with the Basuto, the Ndebele also exhibit fine artistry on the exterior murals of their dwellings. The Ndebele craftsmanship combines abstract patterns with bold colors, designs that are simple and yet somehow manage to bring to mind both a primitive as well as a modern image.
Nowadays in South Africa traditional beadwork is created and used as a tool for communication to foster understanding and education. In the case of the beadwork shown here, the message is the reality of HIV and AIDS as it has affected life in Africa. The beadwork on the bracelet shown is a commemorative souvenir of the World Cup Soccer Tournament, held in South Africa in 2010.
You might ask yourself, “But what does all this have to do with quilts?” A lot, at least for me. It has to do with the global interconnectivity of design and the significance of color as an expression of our everyday lives. For example the MFA quilts created by the North Americans, and specifically for me those created by the Mennonite and Amish women were drawn from their everyday lives, lives that include a strong religious influence like in the Basuto murals.
Many of the quilts displayed at the MFA exhibit were painstakingly stitched together to be used on special and significant occasions, including for use by visitors, but thanks to the copious efforts of Paul Pilgrim and Gerald Roy they have been brought together for those interested to admire in one “eye-popping” collection of color, design, and aesthetics abstracted from everyday life. As said by the MFA, “No longer simply decorative bedcovers, today quilts are recognized as works of artistic expression.”
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Books referenced: African Painted Houses: Basuto Dwellings of Southern Africa by Gary N. Van Wyk.
ISBn 0-8109-1990-7
Ndebele: The Art of an African Tribe Photographs and Text by Margaret Courtney-Clarke
ISBN 0-8478-0685-5
Monkeybiz HIV + AIDS Education through Beadwork by Monkeybiz
ISBN 0-620-31132-0 — www.monkeybiz.co.za
