Curator: Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi: Exhibition Reception Tuesday, March 14, 2006 Special Members' Preview, 5-6:30 pm Public Reception, 6:30-8 pm Gallery Talk with Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi Saturday, March 18, 2006, 1 pm   Monday, March 6-Friday, June 16, 2006 National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinatti, OH, Curated by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi | learn more: Carolyn Mazloomi | | learn more: National Underground Railroad Freedom Center | The Freedom Center celebrates Women's History Month with a spotlight on one of the most enduring and beloved art forms, quilting. Parallels and Intersections: Artists Quilt a World, the exhibition is curated by internationally renowned quilt historian and artist Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi. Don't miss the chance to experience this extraordinary range of quilts and the stories they tell, not only from the United States, but also Africa, Switzerland, Canada, England, Iran and Peru. The exhibition quilts explore global issues of a social and political nature including peace, racism, environmental awareness, and feminist issues. Gallery Talk with Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi Saturday, March 18, 2006, 1 pm Artist, author and historian Dr. Mazloomi has exhibited her quilt art internationally, including at the Smithsonian, the Wadsworth Museum, the American Museum of Design and here at the Freedom Center. Come hear her insights about cultural and narrative aspects of quilting. Shell also be available to sign copies of her books, Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts and Threads of Faith: Recent Works from the Women of Color Quilters Network.     Keisha Roberts's Work in Parallels and Intersections Images of the quilts may be viewed in the | Portfolio |.   Blood on the Fields Second Blood on the Fields Second is an homage to the enslaved children, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers whose masters held title to them as if they were chattel, a tractor, a tree, and worked them and tortured them. They bled on this land. When I think about our country’s violent ambience, and the centuries over which it has been so, I have a difficult time imagining that there can be a grain of dirt that has not been washed in blood.   Planting Corn and Dreams Near Moncks Corner, South Carolina (photo above) I was immediately captivated by this women when I saw her in this 1941 Jack Delano photograph titled Old Negro Woman Going Out to Plant Corn on a Large Plantation Near Moncks Corner, South Carolina in the Farm Security Administration Collection at the Library of Congress. Agricultural labor was intricately woven into the lives of black women during American enslavement and for many women in the Jim Crow South. They were tied to this land. They worked—hard—but they also had dreams and passions. This woman, whose name was never recorded, is photographed working in the fields, yet she still adorned herself with a ribbon in her hair and stands in a dreamlike countenance. I imagine that she is planting much more than corn on this March afternoon in South Carolina. I imagine that she is planting dreams.   Black Water Fifth When I imagine the middle passage, I imagine a strange river through the ocean made black by the bodies and grief of captured Africans bound for enslavement in the United States. This quilt is made from several shades and textures of black and brown fabric to represent the diversity of African peoples purchased and shipped to these shores. Though the fabrics are stitched tightly into place, they still dance and yearn for freedom.     © 2005 keisha roberts, all rights reservedphoto creditsdesigned by keroberts.com