Journey to the Beloved Community: Story Quilts by Beth Mount features quilts created by Beth Mount, a Georgia native living in New York City. Mount uses her textile skills in a creative format to build communication among the diverse groups of people with whom she works, supporting people with disabilities in becoming valued members of the community. She achieves that end by using quilts as a way to connect people and ideas, art and activism.
Mount’s quilts serve as metaphor and example of the weaving together of the colorful interests of many into tapestries of shared concern. Her quilts display vibrant collections of diversity – fabrics, patterns, and identities – from people of many cultures finding a way toward an aesthetic that expresses harmony, balance, rhythm, vitality, beauty, and joy in the process of creation.
While Mount’s quilts are created with a communal purpose, her aesthetic is rooted in both quilting traditions and contemporary eclecticism. Like many women, Mount learned to quilt and embroidery from her grandmother. She hand sews her quilts, but uses a machine to complete her work. Her colorful design-filled creations are inspired by the people she meets and knows, but her aesthetic is largely informed by artist Faith Ringgold who is best known for her mixed-media story quilts. Mount also admires the work of the Gees Bend quilters from Alabama.
Organized by Telfair Museums and curated by Tania Sammons, Curator of Decorative Arts and the Owens-Thomas House.
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Related Programs:
Beth Mount, Speaker, 2012 TEDxCreative Coast
May 18 / TBD / JC
Opening Reception
July 19 / 6 pm / JC
Free and open to the public.
Seeing Savannah: Lyn Bonham’s View of Citizen Advocacy
July 20-December 16 / JC / Trustees Gallery
Photographer Lyn Bonham has documented several advocate/protégé relationships established through Chatham-Savannah Citizen Advocacy. The photos in this exhibit, which span the years 20xx-20xx, showcase Bonham’s talent in revealing the essence of her subjects’ relationships.
I Am The Beloved Community: Story Quilts of Our Savannah
August 10-December 16 / JC / Second Floor Gallery
Organized by Loop It Up Savannah of West Broad Street, this exhibition is a collection of neighborhood story quilts made by the children of the West Broad Street YMCA, Boys and Girls Club of the Coastal Empire and the seniors of the City of Savannah Hudson Hill Golden Age Center and documented by international students from the Savannah College of Art and Design English as a Second Language Department
Waddie Welcome and the Beloved Community Program
September 27 / 6 pm / JC
Lecture will feature Beth Mount, Tom Kohler, and Susan Earl. Free and open to the public.
Eye to Eye: The Making of We
Opening reception Friday, September 28 / 7 pm
September 28 – October 24 / Indigo Sky Gallery, 915 Waters Avenue
Coordinated by Jerome Meadows, five Savannah artists exhibit original art created in response to the interplay and personal dynamics that exist between people involved in collaboration with Chatham-Savannah Citizen Advocacy.
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Top: Beth Mount; Everyday Heroes, 2002 [detail]; Cotton; 88×86 inches; On loan from Beth Mount
