Ninth-Graders' Quilts at the Spencer Museum of Art

Jesse Melott, Old Couch

Native Son, Local Threads: Quilts Inspired by Richard Wright

The Spencer Museum of Art is also hosting a show of students' quilts made in a class taught by Marla Jackson and Michel Loomis. The quilts will be up in the Lobby Gallery through September 4th.
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George Stockhammer, Hiaku #1

This spring, artist Marla Jackson worked with Michel Loomis’s ninth-grade English students at Lawrence’s Central Junior High School to create textiles based on the literature they were studying. Jackson taught the students sewing skills and inspired them to create narrative quilts. The quilts on display here are the results of their work. To honor the writer Richard Wright (September 4, 1908–November 28, 1960), the artists/students drew their inspiration from reading the haiku poems that he wrote late in life. Wright was African American, and his powerful, sometimes controversial books included Native Son and Uncle Tom’s Children; much of his literature concerned racial themes, and his work arguably helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century.

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Taylor Vardis, The Sun for Tomorrow