Sassy Sankofa, 2023
This quilt honors African American quilters by using African fabrics, a crown symbolizing the “richness and glory of African American culture,” and ankle bracelets of shells and a chain, along with a sewing bobbin and scrap of fabric held in “Sassy’s” beak. “Our quilts are an expression of our experiences told through cloth and in stitches,” Swain states, emphasizing that “our stories [must be] told, written, created, and stitched by us,” not “dictated by others according to their interpretations…when they are not living in our skin.”
Cotton, metal, and shells. Lent by Rose Swain