Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi introduces herself as an “elder African-American mother, wife and grandmother born in the Jim Crow segregated south,” a perspective that shapes how she moves through this world.
It’s why her parents joined the Great Migration and moved the family from South Louisiana to Los Angeles. It’s why she gave up her job as an aerospace engineer, where her colleagues were all white men, to become the historian, curator, author, lecturer, founder, and already-legendary quiltmaking artist that we know her as today. It’s why her quilts sometimes center children, usually her grandchildren, but mostly depict giants like Fannie Lou Hamer, James Baldwin, Henrietta Lacks, Congressman John Lewis, and Ruby Bridges, whom she refers to as heroes and sheroes.
Her current exhibition, Whole Cloth: Narratives in Black and White—on view at the Claire Oliver Gallery in NYC until November—showcases all of the above named game changers. True to the name of the exhibit, of the 16 quilts presented, most of them are black and white. Occasionally, there are pops of color. For example, in “Ode to a Native Son,” James Baldwin—a Harlem artivist who spent much of his time in France—steps out of the frame, holding a lit cigarette, with both the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty in the background. The piece is rendered in black and white, yet his scarf stands out in striking red.
