To Old Freetown’s Shores

2009, approx. 60”L x 90”W, hand-dyed, printed cotton, linen and silk fabric, photo transfers on fabric, machine-quilted, hand-embellished.

This work was created for the communities of Grand Bahama Island, The Bahamas, to document the history and people of Freetown, Grand Bahama Island. The project, funded in part through the National Museum of the Bahamas, Antiquities, Monuments and Museums Corporation in Nassau, brought me to Freetown each month, from November to June, to work on art quilts with community members to incorporate Freetown’s history and the personal histories of the participants.  Using my photo-memory quilt process, we transferred family snapshots onto silk, dyed and painted fabric to accompany the pictures and created very personal art.

After completing the workshops, I returned home to develop this piece for the Grand Bahama Heritage Foundation’s permanent collection reflecting on my experience in a community with a compelling story of emancipation from slave ships, a long history of struggle to make a living from the sea and faith that life would be better for future generations.

I used photos of participants, rust prints from community artifacts, and silk screens of documents from the National Archives records about Freetown’s history, including stories of the Middle Passage and land plat documents showing land given to the ancestors of Freetown members. The boatman’s hat is community made plaited palm. I used Timtex interfacing to make the boat and waves waves stand out from the whole.