Generational March | Created by Edith Gross from Belle Chasse, LA.

Generational March

Created by:

Edith Gross from Belle Chasse, LA

Exhibit:

Racism: In the Face of Hate We Resist

Artist Statement:

This quilt was inspired by my millennial children, Stephanie Gross and Yvette Tyler, who challenged me to create a work that depicts African Americans’ resistance to inequalities.

The rust-dyed fabric of this work represents the fact that America bears the permanent stain of slavery. The hand stitched paths are the travels we took trying to resist hardships. The mud cloth border shows that African Americans were present throughout the country, from early colonization to the present time.

The dates are accompanied by pictures of shoes worn by African Americans during that era or replicas of footwear of the period: 1619 - chains; 1700 - leather shoes; 1800s – Underground Railroad and wooden shoes; 1860-1880 – Wild West; 1914 – World War I; 1915- the Great Migration; 1963 – the Civil Rights Movement; 2020 – the Black Lives Matter Movement.

2020
37" x 51"
Rust-dyed fabric, printed pictures, mud cloth; pieced, hand stitched.