Lureca Outland was 104 years old when she died in 2008. Growing up in and around Boligee, Greene County, Alabama, she was born early enough to experience the aftermath of reconstruction and lived long enough to glimpse the hope of America’s first African American presidential candidate. Outland’s father died when she was only one year old. Her mother and grandmother raised her in a log house that had no electricity. She worked in the cotton fields for seventy-five cents a day alongside her two sisters and mother; formal schooling was only possible when the harvest was done. Outland learned to quilt as a youngster: "I quilted the tops my mother pieced. Some were filled with cotton left from ginning; others were filled with worn out clothing. My mother taught me to quilt when I was in my teens. We would piece up pants and dress pieces. Those quilts were not fancy like they are now. We used to piece up strip quilts. My mother knew some pattern quilts." These early quilts were largely utilitarian; it was not until her own five children were grown that she was able to fully explore her own creativity in patterns that are often riffs on traditional blocks. This improvisational quilt relies on a repeated four-patch of diamonds and crosses. The blocks line up and shift in surprising ways; a field of white crosses emerges off-center, like grave markers set within an enclosure.

Stacy C. Hollander, "Diamond Four Patch in Cross Quilt, 1991" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.