Pecolia Warner

Pecolia Warner (March 9, 1901 – March 1983) was an American quiltmaker.

Early life

Pecolia Leola Deborah Jackson was born in a log house near Bentonia, Mississippi, and raised in Yazoo City, the ninth of eleven children.[1] She learned to make quilts from her mother Katie (a trained teacher) and other older women in her community.[2] "It's a gift from God to be able to do this," she explained. "That's my gift, that's my talent. Making quilts, that's my calling."[3]

Career

Warner worked various jobs as a domestic servant in Chicago, Illinois and New Orleans, Louisiana before retiring home to Mississippi in 1968. She quilted in the evenings when she worked full-time.[4]

Warner used color with personal meanings attached: red, for example, meant anger or violence to Warner, and she considered it a color to use carefully.[5] Her compositions have been linked to West African art, and to the "improvisational aesthetic" of jazz.[6]

In 1977, director William R. Ferris featured Warner in the documentary film "Four Women Artists," produced by the Center for Southern Folklore, as one of the four Mississippi women in the title, along with writer Eudora Welty, painter Theora Hamblett, and embroiderer Ethel Wright Mohamed.[7] In 1983, she was honored with a Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award.[8]

Personal life and legacy

Warner was married five times, with Sam Warner as her last husband. Warner died in March 1983, age 82. Her quilts continue to be displayed in museums, usually in group shows about African-American folk art.[9][10] Her niece Sarah Mary Taylor also made quilts that were favored by art collectors.[11]

A song by Louisiana folksinger Kevin Gordon, titled "Pecolia's Star," is about Warner's quilts.[12] Poet Sandra McPherson included a poem named "Holy Woman: Pecolia Warner" in her collection, The God of Indeterminacy: Poems.[13]

References

1. William R. Ferris, ed. Afro-American Folk Art and Crafts (University Press of Mississippi 2009): 100. ISBN 1604733918
2. Marion Barnwell, ed. A Place Called Mississippi (University Press of Mississippi 2010): 330. ISBN 0878059644
3. Marilynne S. Mason, "Crafts Become Art in African-American Quiltmaking Exhibition," Los Angeles Times (December 16, 1993): 7B.
4. Brook Davis Anderson, "Pecolia Jackson Warner," in Gerard C. Wertkin, ed., Encyclopedia of American Folk Art (Routledge 2004): 543-544. ISBN 0415929865
5. Geoff Gehman, "African American Quilts 'Whoop' with Color," The Morning Call (March 27, 1994).
6. Patti Carr Black, Art in Mississippi, 1720-1980 (University Press of Mississippi 1998): 213. ISBN 1578060842
7. Teri Hurst, "Folk-South: Workshop on Southern Life and Art Tells it Like it Is," Daily News [Bowling Green, Kentucky] (November 9, 1978): 5-A.
8. Annie Shaver-Crandell, "Pecolia Warner," in WCA Honor Awards Program (Philadelphia, February 1983): 16-17.
9. Diane Cox, "Quilts' History and Art on Display," New York Times (March 18, 1984).
10. Lennie Bennett, "Patterns of Improvisation: Two exhibitions of vintage African-American quilts show how women created uncommon beauty from common scraps of fabric," St. Petersburg Times (January 31, 2005).
11. Maude Southwell Wahlman, "African Charm Traditions," in Charles Russell, ed., Self-taught Art: The Culture and Aesthetics of American Vernacular Art (University Press of Mississippi 2001): 164. ISBN 1578063809
12. Alex Rawls, "Kevin Gordon Goes for Glory," Offbeat Magazine (February 14, 2012).
13. Sandra McPherson, The God of Indeterminacy: Poems (University of Illinois Press 1993): 29. ISBN 978-0-252-06271-1