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American Quilts | 
 enlarge | Director: Laurie A. Gorman
Actor: Joanne Garrett
Studio: PBS PARAMOUNT
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $16.10
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Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 62283
Format: Anamorphic, Dolby, Hifi Sound, Ntsc, Surround Sound, Thx, Widescreen
Language: English (Unknown)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 841887009621
EAN: 0841887009621
ASIN: B001CR49AW
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
Release Date: September 9, 2008
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Product Description
From the days of the earliest settlers to modern times, quilts and their kaleidoscopic colors have adorned U.S. homes. Follow the phases of quilting history and learn more about their unique symbolism in both the family and the arts. Artists who create quilts are as varied as the patterns they produce. Find out the secrets each one holds, then visit popular American quilt shows in Kentucky and Texas.
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| Customer Reviews:
Lovely, but for the Pottery Barn Type November 15, 2008
Jeffery Mingo (Homewood, IL USA)
If this were a paragraph, the main sentence came in the middle of it. A quilting conference organizer says, "I started this event because I had seen one too many quilts being covering for oily, broken car parts or being used for the family dog to give birth upon." This work is meant to remind people that quilting is an art and a wonderful means of self-expression that American women have been doing for centuries.
There are some really astonishing facts here. One woman owns a quilt that an ancestor from 175 years ago made. Quilts were a means for pioneer women to describe their fear and excitement about traveling to the frontier. They showed modern women using the Beatles and "Little Shop of Horrors" as themes for today's quilts. Still, if you are convinced that quilts are beautiful expressions and take a lot of energy to make, then this documentary is a long, slow preaching to the choir.
I have to be very honest that I was not the target audience for this work. This work both interviewed and seemed to be speaking to middle-aged women, most often from rural areas and most often of European ancestry. The women featured here are the types that watch Martha Stewart and would shop at Pier 1 Imports. So granted, if I were a housewife type who was trying to find a hobby, then maybe I'd be grooving to this a bit more.
The work does talk about history, but I still think two large components are missing here. It's great that women from the 1800s made these beautiful quilts and we can see them now, but there's no mention that modern women have TVs and step aerobics classes and blogging. The demise of quilting may be because women have far more ways to entertain themselves now. I once asked a co-worker, "Are you going to make a quilt for your grandchild if either of your children tells you they are expecting?" She replied, "No! I'm going to go to the mall and buy whatever quilt I like and hand it to them." The demise of quilting may happen because covers can be so easily mass-produced nowadays.
The work does show two women of European ancestry that sewed African and Native American themes into their quilts, but they do not show a single quilter of color. Womanist author bell hooks has written about quilts and how the role Black women played in making them often goes unnoticed. Now remember in "How to Make an American Quilt," the producers choose renowned poet Maya Angelou to be a part of the quilting bee. DON'T GET ME WRONG!: I'm an not accusing this work of oppression. I do wonder if Black women in the past made more "crazy quilts." Maybe it was the necessity for warmth and the need to re-use old cloth that explains their quilting. The women in this documentary seemed class-privileged, if not super rich. Perhaps many women of color have too many demands on their time to be quilting for the fun of it.
This work never mentions what I think of as the most famous quilt: the AIDS Memorial Quilt(s). There is only one male quilter shown here, and I don't doubt they make a minority of quilters. The work says it's 80 minutes long, but the last 20 minutes are just a slideshow of quilts without the creators present.
I have a quilt in my closet that my step-grandmother who died in 1999 made. I think I will hug it tight (and maybe get it professionally washed) after watching this work.
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