Sewing Stories: Harriet Powers' Journey from Slave to Artist
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- €5.49
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- €5.49
Publisher Description
An illuminating picture book biography of an artist and former slave whose patchwork quilts bring the stories of her family to life.
Harriet Powers learned to sew and quilt as a young slave girl on a Georgia plantation. She lived through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and eventually owned a cotton farm with her family, all the while relying on her skills with the needle to clothe and feed her children.
Later she began making pictorial quilts, using each square to illustrate Bible stories and local legends. She exhibited her quilts at local cotton fairs, and though she never traveled outside of Georgia, her quilts are now priceless examples of African American folk art.
Barbara Herkert’s lyrical narrative and Vanessa Newton’s patchwork illustrations bring this important artist to life in a moving picture-book biography.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Born into slavery on a Georgia plantation, Harriet Powers learned to quilt from a young age, developing into a skilled artist. Brantley-Newton's collages incorporate photographic snippets of burlap, cotton, and other textiles, while Herkert ably places Powers's life in historical context, as she was eventually forced to sell the two "story quilts" she created in order to make ends meet after the Civil War. The quilts themselves (which now hang in museums) get large-scale reproductions on the endpapers, as well as numbered explanations of the biblical and real-life events reflected within their panels. Ages 4 8.
