MS Museum of Art quilt exhibit opens Thursday in New Albany

Union County Heritage Museum is hosting a quilt exhibit, one of 12 statewide exhibits, as part of Art Across Mississippi: Twelve Exhibitions, Twelve Communities, the Mississippi Museum of Art’s statewide bicentennial initiative.

Voices in the Threads is a quilt exhibit opening January 18, at noon with a presentation by quilter and textile artist Jeanette Stone of Potts Camp, MS. There will be a light lunch served courtesy of Junta Club beginning at 12 noon. The event is free and the public is invited.

Art Across Mississippi: Twelve Exhibitions, Twelve Communities provides residents throughout the state with an opportunity to enjoy high-quality exhibitions from the Museum’s permanent collection in their own communities, to reflect on the rich heritage of Mississippi’s visual arts, and to contemplate the meaning of the bicentennial moment.

The quilts presented in this exhibit come from a variety of quilters from Mississippi. Examples of traditional and non traditional textiles and styles show the great amount of diversity and talent throughout the state.

Union County has a long tradition of quilting. “Our grandmothers, great grandmothers and generations deeper in time pieced together scraps of fabric to make warm covers for beds for their families. The quilting tradition continues today with groups meeting in Union County to quilt and socialize. And many of today’s quilters have turned into textile artists who quilt today as a strong artistic expression – a new voice in the threads, Smith said.

Union County Heritage Museum is one of 12 in state hosting MMA exhibitions

The Union County Peacemakers Quilt Trail with more than 70 installations is more evidence of the enjoyment of quilts in our community, Smith said. “We are grateful for this partnership with our Community Partners who make this presentation possible and to the Mississippi Museum of Art for allowing these pieces from their collection to travel to New Albany.”

“The Museum’s collection of art is made more valuable every time Mississippians have encounters with it,” said Betsy Bradley, Director of the Mississippi Museum of Art. “The celebration of our state’s bicentennial is the perfect opportunity for the Museum to share its collection with people across the state. We are honored that our partners are hosting these exhibitions in their communities. We are excited to share how, during the past two hundred years, artists have helped us to see our hometowns and each other with new eyes and increased sensitivity to the beauty around us.”

To celebrate Mississippi’s bicentennial, the Mississippi Museum of Art is curating exhibitions from its collection for twelve host venues across the state, of which this is one. These exhibitions feature artworks by regionally acclaimed artists – past and present – including Walter Anderson, William Dunlap, William Ferris, Ke Francis, Marie Hull, Hystercine Rankin, and Sulton Rogers, among many others. Art Across Mississippi shares this artwork from the Museum’s collection as a precursor to Picturing Mississippi, 1817-2017: Land of Plenty, Pain, and Promise, a landmark exhibition of more than 175 artworks interpreting the state’s rich artistic legacy over two centuries, brought home to the Museum in Jackson. The exhibition is the latest in The Annie Laurie Swaim Hearin Memorial Exhibitions series. It will proceed chronologically and thematically, giving visitors the opportunity to perceive the evolving depiction of Mississippi – first by foreign-born artists as a place of immense beauty and prosperity, and later as a land laid waste by civil war, farmed by sharecroppers, held in check by segregation, and changed forever by the struggle for civil rights. Eventually, new voices rose to express the extraordinary artistic creativity of Mississippians of all races brought home to the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. Picturing Mississippi will be on view Dec. 9, 2017- July 8, 2018 at the Mississippi Museum of Art.

Bicentennial exhibitions created by the Mississippi Museum of Art are supported by the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation and the state of Mississippi, through the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. To learn more about the Mississippi Museum of Art’s bicentennial celebrations, visit www.msmuseumart.org.

Jill N. Smith

Director

Union County Heritage Museum

114 Cleveland Street

New Albany, Mississippi 38652

662-538-0014

www.ucheritagemuseum.com