A Communion of the Spirits: African American Quilters, Preservers, and Their Stories (review)

Roland Freeman's traveling exhibition of photographs and quilts, A Communion of the Spirits: African American Quilters, Preservers, and Their Stories, was displayed at the Atlanta History Center from July through October 1998, its fourth venue on a ten-stop national tour of art and history museums. Freeman, who has been documenting the world of African American quilts and quilters for more than 20 years and has created several quilt-related exhibitions, considers this exhibition, along with his 395 page book of the same title (Routledge-Hill, 1996), the culmination of his work. The exhibition is large; in Atlanta, where the complete show was installed, it filled 513 linear feet. Consisting primarily of striking large-format color photographs, it travels with ten full-size quilts, several of which were designed by Freeman. A unique and effective component of the show is a series of quilted mattes, most of which were made by the quilters depicted in the photos, which frames 39 of the photographs. Supplementing the traveling exhibition at each venue are quilts made by local quilters whom Freeman has documented: at the Museum of African American History in Detroit, the number of local quilts totaled an impressive 54.

The photographs are mostly portraits—each showing an individual surrounded by her or his quilts, usually taken at home. The composition of each has been carefully arranged, typically creating a brilliant montage of vibrantly colorful quilt patterns. It is painstaking work for photographer and subject, and Freeman reports that one of his subjects followed the session by having a T-shirt made for herself that read, "I survived a Roland Freeman Shoot." The individual faces reveal great pride and pleasure in the quilts and an obvious rapport with the photographer. Not all of those photographed are quilters; some are quilt owners, or preservers, as the title suggests. Freeman's focus on quilts as objects of communication more than just works of art makes it natural for him to include those who preserve and treasure quilts as well as those who create them. The portrait includes famous names such as Rosa Parks and Alice Walker, but the majority of documented quilters are everyday folks. Quilt styles captured in his photographs range from the most traditional, utilitarian work to artful wall hangings. Freeman has painted the world of African American quilts, or—as he prefers to call them—quilts made by African Americans, in the broadest of strokes.

The ever-creative Freeman, who oversees each installation, was given the option at the Atlanta History Center of filling, in addition to a gallery and hallway, two lobby cases. In each of the cases he created a vignette of large and small furnishings, quilts, and framed photographs—each an intense composition like those he arranges for his photographs. The subjects that he chose to present in the lobby cases reveal much about Freeman's intimacy with his work. One display featured quilt-maker Annie Dennis of Wilkinson County, Miss. Freeman met Dennis in 1976 during the early years of his quilt documentation work, and befriended her and her mother Phoeba Johnson, who was then age 92. He visited them both many times and commissioned Annie Dennis to make the "Something to Keep You Warm" quilt, which was the title panel for his first exhibition in 1979 (the first nationally touring exhibition of African American quilts). This quilt now travels with A Communion of the Spirits. In conversation, Freeman describes his immense affection for Annie Dennis and his difficult trek to make it to her funeral in 1997, so that he could place the "Something to Keep You Warm" quilt on her casket during the service.

The second lobby case was devoted to his step-grandmother Elizabeth Miles, with whom he lived as a teenage boy in White Plains, Md. Her collection of family quilts included an "ancestral quilt," embroidered with names, birth dates, and death dates of family members...