Atlanta Quilt Festival takes a stand with banned book exhibit

A callout nationwide seeking entries that celebrate books pulled from library shelves has resulted in the creation of 35 quilts that will be on display throughout the monthlong festival.

Several of them illustrate “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou’s memoir about the violence and bigotry she endured as a child, and “The Bluest Eye,” Toni Morrison’s exploration of the racism inherent in our culture’s beauty standards.

The Atlanta Quilt Festival was cofounded by O.V. Brantley, a retired attorney for Fulton and DeKalb counties, who taught herself to quilt as a way to reduce stress in 1999.

Every year it hosts a special exhibit. For the past three years, it was devoted to quilts inspired by the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis. When asked why the organizers decided to focus on banned books this year, Brantley said bluntly: “Freedom. We’re big proponents of our freedom.”

She explained that her quilting friends, known as the Sunday Quilting Group, are also book lovers, so celebrating banned books felt like a natural choice.

“We don’t think that people should ban books,” Brantley said. “We believe people should read what they want to read. So, we just took it from there to make a statement about banned books.”

Brantley made two quilts for the exhibit. One, featuring a crossword puzzle design, illustrates Nikole Hannah-Jones’ “The 1619 Project,” which reframes America’s origin story to illustrate slavery’s role in shaping the country. Michelle Willis also made a quilt inspired by the book. It features a rendering of the White Lion, the ship that brought the first enslaved Africans to the British colony in Virginia.

Brantley’s other quilt is based on Margaret Atwood’s feminist tale about reproductive rights, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

“I cringe at the idea of that book,” Brantley said. “So, my quilt is ‘Never a Handmaid,’ and I tried to create it to look like the book cover, which was the uniform women had to wear, that red and white. I am fairly famous for my red and white quilts. Naturally, when I saw a book with a cover that was red and white, I was drawn to that.”

This year the festival also celebrates the launch of its first book publication, “Good Trouble Quilts” (IngramSpark, $65.99), featuring 200 pages of color reproductions of the John Lewis quilts.

“After we did the exhibit, the quilts were so beautiful. It just seemed a shame to let them go away and disappear into people’s closets never to be seen again,” Brantley said. “Aug. 1 is the official launch and book signing. … We think it will be a classic and a collectible, because everybody loves John Lewis.”

The festival’s main attraction is a juried exhibition of 102 quilts in five categories: art, traditional, modern, African American heritage and small quilts. Although the festival is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of African American quilting and other textile art, submissions for the festival are accepted from all quilters.

On Fridays and Saturdays during the event, there will be workshops for all skill levels, and lectures, including one on using AI to design quilts. Another lecture features Willie Pettway, who will talk about growing up in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, home of the celebrated Gee’s Bend quilters.

Brantley has striven to make the Atlanta Quilt Festival a welcoming organization. The acceptance rate for the juried show is 95%.

“I have been on a mission for the past six years of convincing African American quilters and others … that their quilts are worthy of being seen. We take quilters all the way from beginners up to professional quilters. The only hard rule that we have is that we can’t take quilts over 60 inches,” she said.

“And I’m so proud of that, I don’t mind telling you, because a lot of our quilters have gone on to do wonderful things, like have their quilts acquired by the High Museum, including myself. It’s like the pinnacle of the quilting career to have a museum acquire one or more of your quilts.”

For details about the Atlanta Quilt Festival go to atlantaquiltfestival.com.

Suzanne Van Atten is a book critic and contributing editor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She can be reached at Suzanne.VanAtten@ajc.com.