Hystercine Rankin

Last updated
Hystercine Rankin
Born(1929-09-11)September 11, 1929
Jefferson County, Mississippi, US
DiedFebruary 10, 2010(2010-02-10) (aged 80)
Vicksburg, Mississippi, US
SpouseEzekiel Rankin Sr. (1945–)
Children7

Hystercine Rankin (September 11, 1929 - February 10, 2010) [1] [2] was an African-American quilter from Mississippi. Several of her quilts are held in the permanent collections of the American Folk Art Museum, [3] the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, [4] and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. [5]

Contents

Early life

Hystercine Gray was born on a farm in Jefferson County, Mississippi; she was the third child of her parents. [1] [4] Her mother, Laula, taught at a one-room schoolhouse for four to five months each year, while her father, Denver Gray, was a sharecropper who raised cotton, corn, and smaller garden crops for his family. [1] The two had married on Christmas Day, 1925; Laula was 19 at the time. [4] In 1939, Hystercine's father was shot and killed on a highway by a white man for unknown reasons. Following his burial, Laula, Hystercine, and her siblings (sources differ on whether she had seven or ten) moved in with Laula's mother, Alice Whelman. [1] [4]

Hystercine Gray married her husband, Ezekiel Rankin, in 1945, at age 16. [4] Ezekiel had recently returned from serving in the army during World War II. [4] By this time her mother had also died, and she found herself responsible for raising her younger siblings. [1] [4] Rankin and her husband also went on to have seven children of their own. The couple farmed, and Rankin canned the crops they raised. [1]

Art career

When Rankin turned 12, her grandmother, Alice Whelman, began teaching her how to quilt. [1] [4] Rankin primarily worked on bed covers, a practical item considering the size of her family. [1] [4] She learned styles such as flower garden, nine patch, star quilt, and string quilt. She continued to quilt once she married and began having her own children, and had a tradition of giving each of her children a quilt when they left home to start their own families. [1] Throughout this time, Rankin did not think of herself as an artist.

In 1981, the Port Gibson-based art agency Mississippi Cultural Crossroads (MCC) invited her to participate as a folk artist in the Artist Residency in the Schools program, which was funded by the Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC). [4] During her two-week residency at the junior high school in Lorman, Mississippi, she came to realize the artistic dimensions of her work and the work of her grandmother and other quilters in her community. [1] The following year, several of Rankin's quilts were purchased by Camille Crosby, who continued to purchase from Rankin through the 1990s. [1] [6]

Rankin began working with Mississippi Cultural Crossroads to take orders for quilts, and she put the money she made towards her children's college tuition; all seven children eventually graduated from Alcorn State University. [1] MCC also helped Rankin apply for a Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant from MAC. She was successfully in receiving the grant, which paid her $2,000 to teach a group of six apprentices. [4]

Rankin continued to work with MCC, and in 1988 was made their master quilter. [1] [7] She helped found and do teaching for Crossroads Quilters, a loose collective of women quilters who displayed their work through MCC. [4] Crossroad Quilters began organizing an annual quilt contest and show, called “Pieces and Strings"; in the first ten years of the show, Rankin won 13 first-place awards in various categories. [4] Several of Rankin's works were displayed in the Mississippi Museum of Art, as they agreed to showcase each year's winning entries. [4]

In 1992, MCC hosted a solo exhibit of her work, entitled "Visions and Dreams: A One Woman Show". [1]

In 1996, she served as a demonstrator at the Festival of American Folklife in Washington D.C. [7]

Works

Rankin's early work was utilitarian, using scraps of old cloth which were then pieced into strips and joined to fit the size of whatever bed needed a quilt. [4] In some cases, she used the cloth that was leftover from making or tailoring clothing for her family. [4] [6]

Rankin also made "memory quilts", quilts which depict scenes from the lives of Rankin and her family. [1] [7] She also utilized applique and embroidery when making these quilts. [7] It took Rankin three to four weeks to make the squares for these quilts, and two weeks to piece the squares together. [6]

Besides history, Rankin also drew inspiration from dreams, from which she created her Rainbow pattern quilts, and nature, which inspired her Sunburst quilts. [4] Rankin also used her works to explore Black life in the South; in one quilt, titled Parchman Prison, she used a variation of the Sunburst pattern to depict an abstracted design of a prison. [4]

Recognition

In 1991, Rankin received the Susan B. Herron Fellowship, Mississippi's highest arts award. [1]

In 1993, Rankin won the Southern Arts Federation/NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship. [4]

In 1997, Rankin received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. [1]

In 2007, Rankin was included in an episode of PBS's Craft in America . [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Folk art</span> Art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople

Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative. The makers of folk art are typically trained within a popular tradition, rather than in the fine art tradition of the culture. There is often overlap, or contested ground with 'naive art'. "Folk art" is not used in regard to traditional societies where ethnographic art continue to be made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clementine Hunter</span> American painter

Clementine Hunter was a self-taught Black folk artist from the Cane River region of Louisiana, who lived and worked on Melrose Plantation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Powers</span> American female folk artist and quilter from the 19th century

Harriet Powers was an American folk artist and quilter born into slavery in rural northeast Georgia. Powers used traditional appliqué techniques to make quilts that expressed local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events. Powers married young and had a large family. After the American Civil War and emancipation, she and her husband became landowners by the 1880s, but lost their land due to financial problems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bettye Kimbrell</span> American quilter

Bettye Kimbrell is a master folk artist for quilting, and one of the charter members of the North Jefferson Quilter's Guild in Mount Olive, Alabama.

Roland L. Freeman was an American photographer and documenter of Southern folk culture and African-American quilters. He was the president of The Group for Cultural Documentation, founded in 1991 and based in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dindga McCannon</span> American artist (born 1947)

Dindga McCannon is an African-American artist, fiber artist, muralist, teacher, author, and illustrator. She co-founded the collective Where We At, Black Women Artists in 1971.

Nancy Morrison Crow is an American art quilter and fiber artist. She is one of the leading figures in the development of the art quilting movement of the 1970s and 1980s, and is also known for her development of certain techniques to allow more spontaneity and expression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethel Wright Mohamed</span> American artist (1906–1992)

Ethel Wright Mohamed was an American artist, best known for her embroidered scenes of country life. She is sometimes compared to "Grandma Moses," both for her folk art style of illustration and her late start as an artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Mary Taylor</span>

Sarah Mary Taylor was an African American quiltmaker from Mississippi whose work attracted interest in the 1970s.

Ross Palmer Beecher is a contemporary mixed media artist who creates "quilts, flags, portraits of famous film directors and American folk heroes, and other types of objects from aluminum cans and found objects". She lives and works in Seattle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Lee Bendolph</span> American quilt maker

Mary Lee Bendolph is an American quilt maker of the Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend (Boykin), Alabama. Her work has been influential on subsequent quilters and artists and her quilts have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the country. Bendolph uses fabric from used clothing for quilting in appreciation of the "love and spirit" with old cloth. Bendolph has spent her life in Gee's Bend and has had work featured in the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minnesota.

Gwendolyn (Gwen) Ann Magee was an African-American fiber artist. Learning to quilt in the middle of her life, Magee quickly became known in the world of fiber art for her abstract and narrative quilts depicting the African-American experience. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Museum of Mississippi History, the Michigan State University Museum, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and has been exhibited internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Mingo</span> American quilt maker

Lucy Marie (Young) Mingo is an American quilt maker and member of the Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend (Boykin), Alabama. She was an early member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, which was an alternative economic organization created in 1966 to raise the socio-economic status of African-American communities in Alabama. She was also among the group of citizens who accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loretta Pettway</span> African American quilt artist

Loretta Pettway is an American artist and quilt maker of the Gee's Bend Collective from Boykin, Alabama. Her quilts are known for their bold and improvisational style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rebecca Scattergood Savery</span>

Rebecca Scattergood Savery (1770–1855) was an American quilter. She is associated with six quilts produced between c. 1827 and c. 1852.

Nettie Pettway Young (1916–2010) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective and was an assistant manager of the Freedom Quilting Bee. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Frist Art Museum, and is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Nasher Museum of Art.

Louella Pettway (1921–2006), also known as Luella Pettway, was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective and the Freedom Quilting Bee. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and is included in the collection of the Columbus Museum.

Lucinda Toomer was an American artist who worked in the African-American tradition of quiltmaking. Her quilts are known for their bold compositions, visual rhythm, and improvisational style. They were at the forefront of a surge of national recognition for the art form during the 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pearlie Posey</span> American artist

Pearlie Posey (1894-1984) was an American quilt artist and mother of Sarah Mary Taylor. She is known for her appliquéd quilts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nellie Star Boy Menard</span> American quiltmaker

Nellie Zelda Star Boy Menard was an American quiltmaker and educator. In 1995, she received a National Heritage Fellowship.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 "Hystercine Rankin". www.arts.gov. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  2. ↑ "Hystercine Rankin". The Vicksburg Post. 2010-02-18. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  3. ↑ "Untitled (Family History Quilt)". American Folk Art Museum. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 "Hystercine Rankin". mississippifolklife.org. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  5. ↑ "Dream Quilt - Hystercine Rankin". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  6. 1 2 3 Carter, Janelle (1994-12-15). "Quilts Keep Alive Memories of Hard Times : Art: Hystercine Rankin's hundreds of works vividly capture her experiences growing up black and poor in rural Mississippi". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Hystercine Rankin (1929-2010): Mississippi Folklife and Folk Artist Directory". www.arts.ms.gov. Archived from the original on 2024-02-25. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  8. ↑ "» Hystercine Rankin". www.craftinamerica.org. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.