Burlap

This late twentieth-century quilt revisits burlap similar to pieces used by the artist’s family in early twentieth-century quilting. Thomas Mack (1922-2017) grew up quilting with his family on St. Helena Island in South Carolina’s Gullah community. Around the fireplace in the evenings, everyone pieced quilts from materials on hand, like burlap, flour sacks, and old clothes, to make warm bed coverings. Mack continues to reuse fabric in this quilt made of brown burlap sacks, though due to stewardship and artistic sensibility rather than necessity. In arranging pieces with yellow, green, and red printed labels, Mack adds abstract design along with color.

The quilt’s layers—burlap, batting, and back—are string-quilted with yarn. A red, blue, purple, or violet knot secures the corner of each rectangular patch. The quilt’s cotton binding features blue, red, green, and white stripes, while stems of wildflowers framed in diamonds decorate the cream-colored backing. This quilt was among four by Mack on display in the 1998 exhibition “Man Made: African American Men and Quilting Traditions” at the Anacostia Community Museum (2014.0023.0002, 2014.0023.0003, 2014.0023.0004).