Cuesta Benberry - The Anyone Can Fly Foundation, Inc.

CUESTA: No. They were pretty old. Most of those quilts served as objects for that firstgroup of scholars. They used Roland’s quilt collection. Now Roland himself is, I think,he’s a photojournalist. That’s his work. And he collected these quilts just because heliked them. I think he was on a folk writing assignment for the Smithsonian. And thefolklorist was Worth Long, they went together. He collected those quilts when it wasn’tbeing done. So therefore I think that, although he does not enter the scholarly debateabout quilts. I think that he had that idea to collect these quilts just because of theirappeal to him. That earns him a place.GRACE: How can we see those quilts? How can we see his collection?Figure 10: Jewel Fire 1996. © Gwendolyn Magee. Collection of theartist. 108 1/2 x 88 inches. Photo by Roland Freeman.http://www.quiltethnic.com/mission.htmlCUESTA: It’s still privately held. But he usually has part of it traveling around in variousexhibitions. I notice some of his quilts that he got in Mississippi, very close copies, andthese are individual quilts, so if anybody copies it, it’s obviously a copy because thequilts are so unique that almost nobody else would have that same idea.http://www.tgcd.org/tgcd.cfm?a=ex cf: Something to Keep You Warm: The RolandFreeman Collection of Black American Quilts from the Mississippi Heartland. MississippiDept. of Archives & History, 1979; and More Than Just Something To Keep You Warm:Tradition and Change in African-American Quilting. A Quincentenary Tour. Philadelphia:Springside School, January 24 – March 13, 1992.FAITH: Do you find that happening a lot?CUESTA: Not a lot. But it happens.FAITH: People copying quilts.CUESTA: Out of Freeman’s collection. And this man in California who was shown thispicture and asked to make a quilt. And, of course, he was black, and therefore thatmade it legitimate. But it was an obvious copy of Roland Freeman. So Roland Freeman’searly collection of African-American quilts, mostly from Mississippi should be cited as animportant source of efforts of African-American quilters because he got them early onbefore there had been any outside influence.Section III – Exhibited QuiltsFAITH: Cuesta, is there anything else I should have asked you or any other statementthat you would like to make?BARBARA: I’m curious as to the quilts… You say you married and your husband’s familywas in Kentucky. I’m curious about the names of the quilts.page 13