Edward Bostick

For the last three years I have creating quilts that reflect a diverse spectrum of the American people.  I have constructed quilts that are based on contemporary patterns from our past to our present.

However, my main pursuit has been the construction of quilts that are not based on designed patterns, but on the personal initiatives and designs used by the African American women of the Southern United States.  My main purposes in quiltmaking are to revive and to maintain an interest in the art form of quiltmaking—moreover, to relate the history and cultural relevance that Southern, African-American women played in contributing a very important legacy to the history of this nation for other s to appreciate to feel proud of, to profit and learn from.

I also wish to use this art form of quilting to display and to narrate that the quilts by African-American women illustrated a theme.  Many of quilts were classified as “Housetops”, “Pig-Pens”, “Half-Log Cabins”, “Lazy Gal” and “Cattle Guards”.  The string/diamond quilts were considered the earliest from of quilting used by slave women in the Southern United States.  They took the small pieces of strings and other remnants, after making the “master’s” clothes and quilts, to construct quilts of their own.  The diamond shapes in these quilts represent birth, life, death, and rebirth.

A further reason for my quilting making is to depict the part of history that sympathetic white Americans played in their quiltmaking during the period of slavery up to the Civil War.  For example, to show how they utilized certain symbols in their quilts to decode hidden messages to slaves attempting to escape to freedom in the north.  The “Log Cabin” quilts symbolized that it was a safe house/haven for slaves to hide in.  “The Churn-Dash” symbolized a wagon that could be used to transport them to the next safe escape route. 

In my collection of quilts are African designed quilts, using African materials that portray mythological creatures and symbols.  Another rationale behind my quilting is to depict the mythological creatures and symbols that the early North American Indians used in making their quilts, such as the Hopi deity “Kokopellei”, known as the humpback flute player, who represents fertility, replenishment, music, dance and mischief.