151092891Nora McKeown Ezell19192007NoraEzellhttps://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/2200/fullNora Ezell was a virtuosic artist known for her dazzling improvisational quilts. Born in Brooksfield, Mississippi, in 1917, Ezell grew up near Birmingham, Alabama, where needlework was always a part of her life. As a young girl, she enjoyed home economics courses, where she learned to sew by hand and to make her own clothes by machine. She was introduced to quilting by her mother and aunt, but Ezell was adamant about the fact she was self-taught. She took pride the originality of the designs that she adapted from traditional patterns. In this case, Ezell transformed a traditional eight-pointed Star of Hope pattern into what she sometimes referred to as a "Star Puzzle" quilt. In her autobiography My Quilts and Me (1999), Ezell wrote, "I created my own style to do quilts because I didn’t want to do what nobody else did. I wanted to do something different. I never plan on making a pattern, I do whatever comes of the top of my head."During her quilting career, Ezell worked with incredible energy to create a large body of appliqued and pieced quilts. In the 1990s, she was commissioned by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to create A Tribute to the Civil Righters of Alabama, an important piece that led to a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship in 1992. Ezell’s bold designs and harmoniously discordant color patterns were the product of her distinctive aesthetic as well as her social and cultural context. The capacity to improvise with patterns and repurposed materials were fostered by distressed economic conditions of the rural post-industrial South. Ezell rarely bought material for her quilts because she felt that using scraps is part of the artistry of quilt making. She fondly recalled the thrift of her childhood, when women made quilts and clothes from printed feed and fertilizer bags and also unraveled bags for thread. Many of her materials are unorthodox—neckties, beads, discarded costume jewelry, feathers, upholstery fabric—demonstrating a profound sense of invention and creativity.Further influencing Ezell’s creative output was her experience of the legacy of slavery, reconstruction, and post-reconstruction in the Jim Crow South. The star motif evokes celestial navigation used by slaves on the Underground Railway. According to Ezell, the Star of Hope says: "Look to God for all things, take your burden to him and leave it there. He can and will fix it for you." The quilt may also may reference Billie Holiday’s popular song, "Stars Fell on Alabama," which Ezell cites as a "beautiful memory."Sarah Margolis-Pineo, Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts, Self-Taught Genius Gallery, July 16 – October 3, 2018.(1919–2007)BrooksfieldBrooksfieldBrooksfieldNora McKeown EzellNora Lee McKeown