Feature Exhibits
Myrtie Cope’s embroidered photographs entitled Nature Embroidered will be on display from April 11th through July 12, 2025. As a quilter and photographer, Myrtie Cope has found ways to incorporate photography into quilting and embroidery. Her embroidery adds texture and interest to landscapes and nature photos and, on some photos, creates an abstract image. The stitches create focus on different areas of the photos; colors are added which are not in the original photo but can be imagined. In addition to the ongoing exhibit, the public is welcome to meet Cope and learn more about her work on Saturday, April 26th starting at 2:00pm, with brief artist remarks at 2:30 pm.
Starting on April 15th, the Hubbard Gallery will display Korhogo of West Africa Textiles collected by Beth Ann St. George. A Korhogo cloth is a West African textile made by hand painting designs on hand woven and hand spun cotton fabric. The paintings are done using a specially fermented mud-based and natural vegetal pigment that darkens over time. They are decorated with symbols of humans, natural elements like the sun, moon and stars and animals. The Senufo use the cloth as a shield against vengeful spirits. Women spin the cotton into yarn and prepare the dye while men weave and decorate the cloth.
Beth Ann St. George is a Folk Artist, who uses Korhogo cloth as central pieces of her modern textile art. While she is fascinated with the stories of Korhogo, she does not alter the Korhogo beyond the quilted stitching and an occasional button or bead. The ragged edges are left visible. She uses these pieces to educate people about the meanings of the symbols of the Korhogo cloth.
Great Depression Quilts from the permanent collection of the Southeastern Quilt and Textile Museum will be on display in our classroom until July 12th. Each of the quilts on display will provide a different look into the times and lives of people who lived and quilted during the Great Depression.
Upcoming Exhibits
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Southern White Amnesia by Zak Foster, is an examination of the family stories white Americans pass down through generations—or allow to be forgotten—about their role in slavery and its ongoing legacy. Through traditional quilting techniques subverted for contemporary discourse, the artist explores their own family history as enslavers in South Carolina and Kentucky, creating works that range from a topographic burial ground quilt to AI-enhanced video installations of ancestral portraits. Using worn textiles, traditional patterns like Sunbonnet Sue, and the symbolic language of Southern Baptist church banners, these pieces invite viewers to consider how individual histories form collective identity. The collection aims not only to expose hidden histories but to probe deeper questions about inheritance, responsibility, and repair in contemporary America.
July 15 through September 13, 2025
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From July 15 - September 13, 2025. SQTM will also be showing historic family quilts and textiles from our permanent collection. Many of these quilts were donated with partial family stories, leaving us wondering about the lives of these makers and what stories were lost to time. Sometimes genealogy research can help fill the gaps of time and place, but it is a rare treat when we get items donated with notes passed down for generations or handwritten letters or diaries from the makers themself. Some of the quilts featured in this exhibit were made as wedding presents, others were made for utilitarian everyday use. A few of these quilters include stitched signatures and dates, at least one coverlet was presumed to be woven by an enslaved person. These quilts will be presented with their family stories, along with additional information SQTM was able to glean from historical research and the textile itself.
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Our classroom gallery will feature quilts made by young quilters, showing off the skills of quilters under the age of 18. This space will include quilted creations from former SQTM Quilt Campers, as well as, historic quilts made from young people generations before.
July 15 - September 13, 2025
Upcoming Events and Classes
The mission of the Southeastern Quilt and Textile Museum is to promote and preserve the history of quilting and textiles in the southeastern U.S. through visual exhibitions and engaging educational opportunities that will inspire and carry on the cherished traditions of our textile heritage.