african-american

SF Quilt Guild - Eli Leon

By quiltshome ⋅ April 11, 2007 ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Eli Leon has been studying, exhibiting and writing about improvisational African-American quilts for the past 25 years. A 1989 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship allowed him to expand his research from his home base in Oakland, CA to east Texas, southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana - the geographical area from which most of his initial contacts had migrated. Mr. Leon’s 100 or so hours of interviews with African-American quiltmakers, many of which are quoted in his show catalogues, are archived at the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Now, you can view his work at the San Francisco Chinese Seventh Day Adventist Church on 17 April, thanks to the San Francisco Quilt Guild.

Eli Leon’s publications include:

• Accidentally on Purpose: The Aesthetic Management of Irregularities in African Textiles and African-American Quilts
• Who’d a thought it: Improvisation in African-American quiltmaking
• Something else to see: Improvisational bordering styles in African-American quilts
• Models in the mind: African prototypes in American patchwork
• No two alike: African-American improvisations on a traditional patchwork pattern.

There is a new magazine that you may have noticed at your local quilt shop - Mark Lipinski’s Quilter’s Home Magazine. Mark also has a Yahoo! group for those of you whom want to interact with other quilters online at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PickleRoadStudio/