The Portraits of Resistance and Resilience Exhibition will be displayed at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro through March 3, with an opening ceremony scheduled on Feb. 14. The gallery shows 11 quilts honoring African American women with Wake County Roots — their legacies memorialized through stitches and needles.
Some of the women whose likenesses have been put on display include Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, the fourth African American woman to earn a doctoral degree, and Clarice Nichols Cotton, a day care owner of 35 years. Though they are each well-known for different reasons, their commonality is the impact they had on their communities.
The project began around two years ago when Earl Ijames, the curator of African American History at the North Carolina Museum of History, gave a talk at the West Raleigh Presbyterian Church about upcoming projects. He mentioned Millie Dunn Veasey, an African American servicewoman and Civil Rights advocate, whose name caught the attention of Joyce Watkins King.
King, a member of the church’s arts ministry, recognized that Veasey shared the same last name as her great-grandmother, and the seed was planted for the gallery.
“ I was always interested in knowing more about her,” King said. “Somehow this germ started of ‘I bet there are plenty of other African American women in our community that have done incredible things that we don't know about.’”
King said the church has always been heavily art focused, with its own gallery that houses rotating exhibits. She said the church’s creative inclination served as the groundwork for the exhibition, but the decision to use quilting as a medium for honoring these women came later, when she met Sauda Zahra.
Zahra is a self-taught fiber artist who began quilting in 1998 alongside the formation of the African American Quilt Circle of Durham — a group that meets once a month for quilting show and tells, community outreach projects and more, all in an effort to preserve the tradition of quilt-making in their community, Zahra said. One of her specialties is narrative quilt-making, specifically portraiture quilt-making, the art form that caught King’s attention.
After assembling a group of 13 women — which later dwindled to 11 — King reached out to Zahra about serving as their instructor. Though she didn't have much formal experience teaching, Zahra said she felt compelled to say yes, and saw herself as more of a facilitator.
“ I think the hardest part is getting out of your comfort zone,” Zahra said. “Because a lot of quilters, just creating narrative story quilts is an uncharted territory for them.”
