Bedspread with star motif

Vervaardiging: Claire Packard Amerikaanse,

Yankton Sioux star quilt, by Claire Packard; 1997Cotton fabric, machine pieced and hand-quilted; 110 x 110 cm.\nRMV 5910-2; purchased 1998 in Sioux Falls, SD, galleryThe eight-pointed star pattern has been a source of boundless creativity for American women of different nationalities during the last two hundred years. It is one of the most versatile and most popular patterns in American quiltmaking. A classic star pattern such as this one is composed of dozens of small diamond-shaped pieces stitched into eight large diamonds that form the arms or rays of the star. The finished size depends on how many diamonds are joined in each arm. Because of the way a star quilt is constructed, a relatively large area is left in each of the four corners of the quilt. As in this example, these corners can be filled with smaller eight-pointed stars for a truly virtuosic performance. Native American women on the Great Plains were introduced to this pattern by nuns and missionaries' wives in the last two decades of the 19th century. They immediately adapted it to their own needs, finding within it a visual and symbolic relationship with their own traditional painted and quilled patterns. The parallelogram structure of the imagery is like 19th century wrapped quillwork writ large. While their Euro-American teachers knew this pattern as Star of Bethlehem or Lone Star, to many indigenous women of the Northern Plains, this pattern came to represent the Morning Star, a symbol of the new day.Today, many star quilts are sold to collectors and exhibited at tribal fairs, but quilts also maintain an important place in honoring ceremonies within Native communities on the Northern Plains. They appear at powwows, weddings, high school graduations, basketball games, and funerals. Quilts are often displayed at summer Sun Dance ceremonies, and Lakota religious practitioners are sometimes wrapped in star quilts in Yuwipi ceremonies. Historic photos reveal star quilts to have been an important part of daily life for Indians of the Northern Plains for generations; a well-known photo of Chief Red Cloud's cabin at Pine Ridge in 1891 depicts an eight-pointed star quilt on his bed and an American flag over it.™Northern Plains women have used sewing machines to piece quilts since the end of the 19th century. Some also machine-quilt the layers together, though Claire Packard favors stretching the three layers (backing fabric, batting, and pieced top) on a quilting frame and hand-quilting it with a combination of long straight running stitches and arcing patterns. Packard, who lives in the small town of Gayville in southeast South Dakota, began quilting in the early 1980s, making her first quilts for the give-aways that are part of funeral ceremonies. She won both First and Second Prize in the textile division of the Northern Plains Tribal Arts Show in 1992, and has exhibited and sold her quilts in Europe and North America. Like many other Northern Plains quilters, Packard sometimes incorporates Native imagery into the rectilinear pieced star pattern: tipis, feathers, peyote birds, eagles, and buffalo skulls have all been part of her iconography. Here, she restricts the imagery to the star itself, using color to make the image pulsate. While she sometimes makes bed-sized quilts, the ones Packard makes for sale are more often wall quilts, like this one which measures slightly more than a meter on each side. Multiple borders of blue, pink, flowered, and white cotton fabric enclose and contain the radiating rhythm of the stars.\Janet Catherine BerloUniversity of Rochester, Rochester, NY; 2015Other quilts can be viewed on the artist's website: http://wicahpi.mosaicglobe.com/gallery/10187; Janet C. Berlo and Patricia Crews, Wild By Design: Two Hundred Years of Innovation and Artistry in American Quilts; University of Washington Press; Seattle, 2003. Marsha MacDowell and C. Kurt Dewhurst, eds., To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions; Museum of New Mexico Press; Santa Fe, 1997. Florence Pulford, Morning Star Quilts; Leone Publications; Los Altos, CA, 1989. Scott Stoel, Claire Packard's Quilting; in: South Dakota Magazine, May/June:66-68; 1994.______________________________________________________________________________Sioux patchwork quilt with star pattern, or star quilt. \Origin It is unclear when Indians began making patchwork quilts. The first patchwork quilts seem to have been made in the 19th century. Native American women learned the technique in church or government boarding schools. The technique may have been introduced earlier to Native American women when they were put to work in settler families or by missionary women. The sewing of patchwork blankets was considered by whites to be a useful craft to teach Indian girls and women. Incidentally, among whites this technique was not reserved for women only, but among Indians it was customary for women to engage in the crafting of less durable products such as textiles. In addition, blankets have an association with human reproduction and the cultural reproduction of the kinship group and tribe, which made the technique even more suitable to be done by women. Making patchwork blankets meshed well with customs that Native Americans already had. In addition, Indian women already knew various stitches and appliqué methods (Teilhet-Fisk 1998:58). Indian women often worked together, each specialising in a particular technique (ibid.:59). This was also applicable to the making of patchwork blankets. Plains tribes in particular soon made quilting their own. It replaced other customs, such as the working of bison hides, which were rapidly disappearing at the time (ibid.:58). Today, Indian men also make patchwork quilts (ibid.:60). It should also be noted that these blankets and technique are not tribal and therefore contribute to a pan-Indian identity (ibid.:60).‖ The technique of quilting is the sewing together of three layers: the top, middle layer and the back. This is done with special stitches. It gives the blanket a relief that feels good to the touch. The patches and stitches together form a complex pattern, or a patchwork pattern with a 'counter-pattern' in the stitches. The shapes of the patches resemble the kite shapes, triangles and quadrangles used in 'quilting'. Quilting', however, offers the possibility of making more complicated patterns and shapes because a needle can be used to pierce through the pieces, something which is strictly forbidden in 'quillwork'. Indians almost never make an asymmetrical one that does not have a symbolic pattern (ibid.:59). Originally, colors had different meanings for the tribes. For example, for the Lakota, red is the favorite color of spirits (although they also like blue, yellow, and brownish yellow). Red is the color of the Sun and represents the rising and setting of the Sun (ibid.:60-1). \'Best quilt' In addition to patchwork quilts for ordinary domestic use (which will not be discussed further here), there are 'special quilts' or 'best quilts' made which are considerably more costly. These are valued for their aesthetic and artistic qualities and are given as valuable gifts on special occasions. Patchwork quilts can be heirlooms with a rich social history (ibid.:63). However, nowadays it is becoming more common to see a patchwork quilt as an art object and to make it for sale (ibid.:59). The large amount of time and energy put into making a patchwork quilt makes it valuable (ibid.:60). Thus, patchwork quilts are used to generate money, sometimes through a lottery or competition at a powwow. In addition to money, they bring honor and prestige to the makers (ibid.:65).‖ Star quilt patterns have traditionally been widely used by both whites and Indians. The latter usually refer to such a motif as the 'Morning Star'. The morning star is a meaningful symbol that was painted, woven, quilled and beaded long before Indians made patchwork quilts (ibid.:61). The morning star represents renewal and hope (ibid.:61-2). Because of its own traditional meaning, the star pattern is often seen at events of great ceremonial and ritual value such as birth, marriage, healing and deaths. The stars usually have eight points and are made up of kite shapes which in turn are made up of many smaller kite shapes (ibid.:62).‖ The Lakota consider stars to be "the holy breath of God," the woniya of Wakan Tanka. Constellations of stars represent sacred utterances/speech, the meanings of which are handed down through stories and ceremonies in which oral tradition plays a role (Goodman 1992:215).‖ Literature:‖Goodman, Ronald On the Necessity of Sacrifice in Lakota Stellar Theology as Seen in ‖The Hand‖ constellation,‖ and the Story of ‖The Chief Who Lost His Arm‖. In: Earth and Sky Visions of the Cosmos in Native American Folklore. Ed.: Ray A. Williamson and Claire R. Farrer, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 1992.‖Teilhet-Fisk, Jehanne ‖American Indian Quilts: an Indigenous Product of the Contact Zone. In: Dimensions of Native America: the Contact Zone. Ed.: Jehanne Teilhet-Fisk and Robin Franklin Nigh, Florida State University 1998.\nAnine de Grood 2000