Dallas Arboretum Quilt Exhibit

Great people inspire others and strive to contribute to society in their own unique way. The Quilter’s Guild of Dallas seeks to interpret the accomplishments of some of these individuals through the creation of modern quilts by Guild members. The twelve quilts on display throughout the DeGolyer House use textiles as the art medium to celebrate the work and times of historical figures from Shakespeare to Harriet Tubman to Amelia Earhart.

The Dallas Arboretum also presents the sculpture exhibition “The Great Contributors,” a collection of bronze statues of a few of the finest contributors in world history. Experience both exhibitions to discover how these artists interpret past contributions and suggest a vision for the future.

The Quilter’s Guild and sculpture exhibitions are included with garden admission or membership.

Barbara Ann McCraw, “Oya II” 83″ x 85″
Harriett Tubman Era

Upon retiring from a career as Medical Technologist and Pathology Supervisor in 1989 my obsession turned to quilt making. Since then, I have taught classes, lectured, and exhibited my work throughout the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Asia. I began a journey telling stories and making statements with my quilts. I spoke about my life as an African American girl and woman, growing up in inner city Chicago. I spent three weeks in Africa as the lead teacher in an Art of Quilting program for a young women’s center, and at a school for handicapped youth, with the goal of providing them with a marketable skill. I also developed a free summer program at my studio to teach underserved girls and boys the basics of quilting and have donated numerous quilts to non-profit organizations.

I was blessed to escape the circumstances of my youth by the help and advocation of caring school counselors, teachers and my church. My quilting is my special gift from God who guides my hands with each stitch.

Oya II is the second of this design. My goal was to make her look infused into the quilt by adding curved shapes appliqued onto the background of the quilt and to suggest shape, using her face, arms and feet, stand out with 3-dimensional embellishments and suede. It is machine pieced and appliqued, with handmade and sewn motifs.

Barbara Oliver Hartman, “Energy” 53″L x 52″W
Albert Einstein Era

We see circles and radiating lines as movement and energy. Einstein said “Energy cannot be created or destroyed from one form or another”. He also said “Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy, this is physics.”

This quilt was made by using applique by machine and quilted by machine. Hand stitch embellished. All hand dyed and overdyed fabrics.

Barbara Oliver Hartman, “Integration” 41″L x 55″W
Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges was a trailblazer and in 1960 was one of the first to integrate schools in her community. She was a brave little girl and so were her parents. All of the white children were withdrawn from her class and she attended each day of the school year by herself. She said later “My message is really that racism has no place in the hearts and minds of our children.” This quilt represents her dream that all colors could live together in harmony.

This is mostly applique by machine using commercial and hand dyed fabrics and machine quilted.

Linda Newman, “I Spy Texas Innovation” 64″ x 72″
Albert Einstein

As a Texas lawyer for over 30 years, I represented clients in the financial and high-tech industries and witnessed how innovation, technology, curiosity, science, and creativity led to wonderful advances in all aspects of Texas life. When I was a new quilter (I started in 2007), I fell in love with printed fabrics that showed all types of objects, people, animals, and places. I made almost a dozen “I Spy” quilts for nieces, nephews, charities, and my own grandchildren. I accepted the challenge of the 2018 State Fair to make a quilt with the theme of “Texas Innovation.” I filled the Texas state outline with all the areas of Texas creativity: fashion, education, chemistry, music, technology, transportation, housing, space exploration, food! Luckily I had already collected the many tiny squares of fabric. My Innovation quilt links with the great scientist Albert Einstein. He saw the world and the universe in a radically new way, with his revolutionary theories of special and general relativity, a foundation for new explorations in physics, chemistry, astronomy and even quantum mechanics.

Karen K. Stone, “Neutrality” 57″ x 57″
Harriet Tubman 

“When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.”
Harriet Tubman, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman by Sarah Hopkins Bradford.

Patchwork and turned machine appliqué in cotton & silk fabrics & threads; improvisational ribbon appliqué; machine quilted; cotton batting.”

Linda Bartley, “After the Dark the Rising Sun”  56″ x 75″
Benjamin Franklin

During the ferocious debates over the writing of the Constitution in 1787 Benjamin Franklin observed on Chairman George Washington’s chair a picture of the sun. During the heated discussions he wondered if it was a setting sun or a rising sun. When the delegates agreed on the Constitutional democracy framework Benjamin Franklin remarked “But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.”

The flow of colors incorporates the multiple hues that appear as the sun rises daily on the eastern horizon. The hexagon shape represents a common shape in nature from snowflakes, wasp nests and insect eyes. It was a challenge to connect the hexagons which is done so seamlessly by nature.

Earamichia Brown, “The Advocate”  30″W x 50″L
Harriet Tubman

I am proud to call Janaye Ingram my friend. She is the continuation of the legacy of Harriet Tubman. An advocate is someone who fights for something or someone, especially someone who fights for the rights of others. I am an advocate by profession, lawyer and former prosecutor. Harriet Tubman was an advocate for the enslaved and Janaye Ingram is an advocate for women’s rights and social justice. Justice, equity, women’s rights, and activism are not only words, they are a way of life for Ingram. These are ideals that must be fought for and that is what Ingram does.

Tubman was not just an escaped slave; she was an abolitionist and social activist and in her later years fought for women’s suffrage. Ingram has been committed to social justice issues. She served as the Head of Logistics and a National Organizer with the Women’s March on Washington in 2017 and is also a co-founder and board member of Women’s March, Inc. This quilt is made of cotton and satin, incorporating my favorite block, the courthouse square. It is a digital drawing, with photo editing, machine appliqué and quilting.

Deborah Boschert, “Orion Odyssey”  40″ x 40″
Amelia Earhart

This art quilt collage was made to honor 100 years of naval aviation, my husband’s service as a P-3 pilot and our life as a military family. Amelia Earhart’s passion for aviation is carried on by all kinds of pilots all over the world.

Martha Smith, “The Kingdom of Bees”  47″ x 60″
William Shakespeare

“For so work the honeybees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom.” Henry V, Act 1, Scene 2 In the context of the play, Shakespeare presents the bees as a model for how a society can be organized where all the members have specific duties all working in concert towards a common goal. In our modern era, the bees can inspire us to work together to protect the environment that we and the bees all share and depend upon.  As the modern world battles with the decline of bees due to pesticides and loss of habitat, to name just a few, this quilt is a reminder of the fragile nature and importance of this wonderful kingdom of the bees.

The quilt top was hand appliquéd using needle turn method. Pam Wingate machine quilted the 1/2” honeycomb pattern with a variegated metallic thread. Two quilt battings were used to account for the added weight from the metal decorations to be applied. Many electronic parts and pieces were soldered together before sewing them to the quilt. Hinges from a dollhouse hardware source, springs, gears, light bulbs, old watches, chains, broken jewelry, shower curtain hooks, grommets, window screen remnants, and odds & ends from the toolbox were all used to “steampunk” this quilt.

Carol Morrissey, “Spider Lillies”  43″L x 68″W
Albert Einstein

My back yard is a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat, a rather long name for a simple concept of creating a habitat that sustains nature. I’m also a gardener of sorts—a messy gardener as someone once described it. I’ve always loved nature, and like many artists, it has been a major influence in my work. My first non-traditional quilted work was an image of begonia leaves and flowers, and many nature-inspired quilts have followed. I enjoy creating my own hand-dyed and painted fabrics to use in my work.

One of my favorite flowers is the spider lily. I have hundreds of them in my back yard and have shared them with many people. Gardening can be very challenging in our area (northwest of Dallas) but the spider lilies never fail me. Every September, when most things have suffered from the heat, and stopped blooming, and the garden is looking bleak, a day will soon arrive when I discover the tiny green buds of the spider lilies peeking out of the soil. And it’s not long until the glorious red blooms appear, a welcome sight after a hot Texas summer.

My quilt was inspired by photos I took of my spider lilies. I painted the whole-cloth background (and quilt back), painted the flower pieces separately, and then fused the many pieces to the background fabric. I machine quilted it on my longarm machine.

Albert Einstein must have been a nature lover, too. Surely all the secrets of the universe are concealed in nature. Consider the Fibonacci spiral so frequently seen in nature, and that same sequence is used in math, science, and engineering.

Einstein also said, “What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

Linda Bartley, “Mid Foot Fusion”  45″ x 67″
Mark Twain

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
– Mark Twain, a Biography

Artists use the same lines and colors that have existed through all the ages but with each recombination of line and color, new and unique designs emerge.

Using only straight lines and multiple colors in this quilt, various patterns emerged.  A unique art quilt was constructed with parallel and 45-degree lines resulting in squares within squares, zigzags, and diamonds.   

While recovering from surgery on my right foot, I learned to operate the sewing machine with my left foot in order to construct the small blocks.  I waited until I could stand again to design the entire quilt.

QGD Keeper Quilt, “Art Nouveau Garden”  96″ x 79″
Amelia Earhart Era

Amelia Earhart was born during the flourishing of the Art Nouveau style of art. The distinguishing characteristic of Art Nouveau is its undulating asymmetrical line, often taking the form of flower stalks and buds, vine tendrils, insect wings, and other delicate natural objects. The Quilters Guild of Dallas collaborated on the Art Nouveau Garden quilt which was completed in 2000. Individual quilters received swatches of the colorful fabric, they then designed and created their own interpretation of a floral motif in the Art Nouveau style. Sandy Brawner, a Dallas quilter and small business owner organized the project.

QGD Keeper Quilt 1998, “Dallas Past”  84″ x 71″
Dallas History

Dallas has had a rich and colorful history since its founding in 1841. The blocks in “Dallas’ Past” represent historical transportation, ranching, farming, industry, architecture and other aspects from our past.  As Dallas grew into the metroplex that we currently experience, there are many experiences that contributed to that growth and are part of our Dallas heritage.

Each scene in “Dallas’ Past” was designed and created by an individual quilter in the Quilter’s Guild of Dallas.  Judith Patricelli-Stone, Senior Production Geologist with Mobil Oil Corporation, coordinated the collaboration and the completion of the quilt in 1998.