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Super
Stars: Quilts from the American Folk Art Museum
November 16, 2010 - September 25, 2011
American Folk Art Museum
(branch location at 2 Lincoln Square)
Quiltmakers have always sought inspiration
from the world around them, introducing the outdoors into the domestic interior
through bedcovers that may reflect the colors of the landscape, the imagery of
flowers in a garden, or animal and insect life. Stars, some of the most
important elements of the natural world, are also a beloved and enduring motif
in American quilts. Stars appeared in pieced bedcovers as early as the
eighteenth century and remain popular with quilt artists today. Their ethereal
light has guided nighttime travelers on sea and on land; their faraway presence
has become the stuff of dreams when pieced, appliquéd, or embroidered into the
form of a quilt.
Stars have always signified something special: brilliance, power, magic. Their
symbolic association with God and his created universe removed the icon from
ordinary usage. Although eight-pointed stars appear frequently in Islamic
decorative arts and on early non-Western textiles, in Western culture the
imagery largely had been reserved for painted representations of the canopy of
heaven: a host of stars against an ultramarine or cobalt ground. Stars were also
embroidered onto religious vestments; some of the most exquisite examples date
back to medieval times and were stitched with an embroidery technique known as
Opus Anglicanum, or English work, often with gold or silver-gilt thread. A very
few items of embroidered secular clothing of this period featured stars, as did
some coats of arms and heraldic banners.
Stars do not make a major appearance in American quilts until the last quarter
of the eighteenth century, when they were increasingly used as a pieced field
motif. This was no doubt a response, at least in part, to the design of the flag
of the newly formed United States. Conceived as a “new constellation,” the
canton featured white five-pointed stars against a cobalt background, evoking
once again the moral certitude of the heavenly canopy, as well as the strength
of America’s victory. By this time, stars were also a strong element in the
neoclassical lexicon. Their presence on quilts allowed the tenets of the
classical world to resonate with the new republic in a highly fashionable
manner.
It was not until the turn of the nineteenth century that a single eight-pointed
star moved front and center in whole-cloth quilts, usually pieced in a
solid-color glazed wool known as calimanco. But with the invention of the
kaleidoscope in 1816, art and science took an unanticipated and dazzling turn.
Quiltmakers, especially, embraced the refracted imagery produced by the
kaleidoscope. Large single stars now blazed across cotton quilt tops, pieced
from multitudes of diamonds that scintillated in rings from the center to the
points. Staggered rows of repeated stars danced across the surfaces of
bedcovers. By the Victorian era, the aspect of stars changed once again with the
influence of exotic ideas from the Near East. Star motifs were interpreted for a
new age in silk, velvet, and brocade show quilts."
STARS
Lone Star |
Bethlehem Star | Blazing Star
Broken Star | Sunburst | Feathered Star
Super Stars
Perhaps the most visually dazzling
and—technically challenging—star quilts are those that feature a single large
star blazing across the expanse of the textile. These are almost always
constructed of equilateral-diamond-shaped patches whose points converge at the
center and then radiate in concentric rings until the eight points of the star.
Precision in the cutting and assembling of the diamond patches is essential to
the success of this type of quilt which goes by several different names
depending upon nuances in the use of color and fabric, layout, and size.
The Lone Star, whose name may in fact be associated with Texas, the lone
star state, always fills the quilt top. Various effects can be achieved through
the use of dark and light fabrics, warm and cold colors, and the contrast of the
star against the background fabric. The Star of Bethlehem is constructed
in the above fashion, but the quilt top might feature several stars rather than
one and they may be of variable sizes. Sunburst or Starburst is an
overall diamond-pieced design that begins with an eight-pointed star in the
center. The area between each of the points is filled with two diamond patches,
initiating a sequence of. elongated diamonds or triangles. As the star grows,
these fillers enable the pattern to cover the entire surface of the quilt. A
Broken Star is a Lone Star interrupted by solid square blocks in between
each of the eight points. The star is further superimposed upon a square or two
intersecting squares, creating right angles between the outer points.
Ohio Stars and Variable Stars
Ohio Star is a nine-patch block Variable Star is a sixteen-patch block. Central
square surrounded b eight points made from right triangles. Variable stars tend
to have plain square centers while Ohio Stars may have centers further
subdivided by four triangles. Two of the oldest designs in America, often used
in the borders of early center medallion quilts. The early Variable Stars quilt
in this exhibition features a rising star in the center medallion completely
surrounded by rows of ohio stars. Ohio and Variable Stars took on starring roles
as the old-fashioned center medallion style of quilt evolved into repeated
blocks in the nineteenth century. The ohio or variable star was one of the first
deign motifs to be adapted into this new quilt construction. Ohio and variable
stars are very versatile, whether spaced in straight rows, touching, or set on a
diagonal.
Blazing Stars
Quilts with more than eight points are sometimes categorized as Blazing
Stars. These patterns may originate from a six- or more pointed star, and
often are confused with Mariner’s Compass, which originates from a
four-pointed star in the center.
Another description of broken star
The complex Broken Star pattern gives the impression of a Lone Star set within a
starry crown. The separation between the rings is clarified through the use of
solid-color square blocks placed between each of the eight points of the Lone
Star. The second ring begins with the center of a lone star repeated eight times
around ieach square. Looked at another way, one large square is superimposed at
a diagonal on a second square, forming right angles between the outer points;
additional triangles are placed in between each of the points. Although the
pattern seems to have emerged in the early twentieth century, its roots may be
traced to the antique Islamic design of two squares superimposed at right angles
to form an eight-pointed star."
Stacy C. Hollander
Senior Curator |