NedRa Bonds

Last updated

NedRa Bonds
NedRa Bonds 2017 KS.jpg
Born1948 (age 75–76)
Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.
Nationality American
Education University of Kansas, Kansas State University
Known for Quilting, activism
Notable workQuindaro Quilt, If Da Dirt Could Talk, The Finger and The Fist, A Kiss From The Ancestors
AwardsDelegate at the Earth Summit Conference of the United Nations, Kansas Arts Commission, Charlotte Street Foundation Rocket Grant Recipient, Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City's Inspiration Grant Recipient

NedRa Bonds (born 1948) is an American quilter, activist, and retired teacher, born and raised in the historic Quindaro neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. Bonds creates quilts and mixed media fiber dolls using fabric, beads, and symbolism to explore issues dealing with human rights, race, women, politics, and the environment. She is best known for her Quindaro Quilt, a quilt measuring 4 by 6 feet, detailing the important history of the Quindaro neighborhood and its role as part of the National Underground Railroad System of Historic Trails. [1] As a community activist and educator, Bonds advocates for legislation, taught workshops locally and internationally, and attended the Earth Summit Conference on Environment and Development of the United Nations as a delegate in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. [2] Bonds is a practicing artist and retired teacher in Kansas City, Kansas. Her recent projects include her Common Threads quilt, [3] commissioned by the Kansas City Chiefs for their Arrowhead Arts Collection, [4] the Wak’ó Mujeres Phụ nữ Women Mural [5] collaboration, sponsored by the Charlotte Street Foundation's Rocket Grant Program, [6] in Lawrence, Kansas, and her recent cancer project. [7] Bonds was appointed to the Kansas Arts Commission by Kansas Governor Joan Finney in 1992. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Bonds was born in the historic Quindaro neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas to a family of quilters. Both her mother, Georgia Elizabeth Patton (née Goff), and her paternal grandmother, Juanita Patton, were quilters. [8] Her father, William Patton, worked as a police captain. [9] Bonds was taught quilting at the age of six, saying "So I learned to make 10 stitches to the first joint in my finger, and if I didn’t do 10 then I had to take them out and do them over again." [9] She continues to pass these skills on to her two granddaughters. Bonds entered school in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education, recalling "I spent the first three years in segregated schools. Then I was integrated into a school where all the teachers were white, and the subject matter had nothing to do with me." Bonds did not realize until later in life that entering school in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement helped shape her as an artist and an activist. [10]

Bonds received her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Kansas in American Studies and her Master of Science at Kansas State University in Urban Education. [11]

As a young adult, Bonds gave up quilting to pursue more of an activist role through community engagement; "As soon as I could, I gave up quilting to raise hell in all sorts of ways that were meaningful for me at the time. Letter-writing, sit-ins, you name it. It was the 1960s and the civil rights movement." [9]

Career

Quindaro Quilt by NedRa Bonds Quindaro Quilt, created by Kansas City artist NedRa Bonds, illustrates the history of Old Quindaro neighborhood.jpg
Quindaro Quilt by NedRa Bonds

Quindaro Quilt and If Da Dirt Could Talk

Bonds was inspired to take up quilting once again in 1989, in protest of a legislative issue at the Quindaro Townsite. Legislation was being proposed that would allow Browning Ferris Industries to build a landfill on top of the Old Quindaro Cemetery site. Bonds made her Quindaro Quilt in protest, to emphasize the complicated and important history of Quindaro as a stop along the National Underground Railroad System of Historic Trails. [12] Bonds attended city council meetings almost every two weeks for eight years. At these meetings, she would get out her quilt and for the five minutes she was allotted used it as a backdrop to illustrate what a "...travesty it was to throw all that away in the name of a landfill". [9] It was during this time that Bonds met her future collaborator and friend, Nancy Dawson.

If Da Dirt Could Talk was a collaboration between the playwright, professor, and performance artist Nancy Dawson and the quilter and activist NedRa Bonds. Funded by the Charlotte Street Foundation's Rocket Grant, Bonds and Dawson created a series of socially-engaged works that discussed the overlooked history of Old Quindaro. [13] A direct inspiration for Dawson came from stories of her grandmother, Elizabeth Thompson, who escaped slavery to Old Quindaro and was eventually buried in the Old Quindaro Cemetery. [13] As a part of this project, Bonds traveled to public schools in the Kansas City area, leading workshops on community heroes and local history. She taught children about local heroes, like Quindaro-born singer and performer Janelle Monae, and printed the children's hero-drawings onto cloth, which she then quilted together into her Hero Quilts. Both Bonds and Dawson created quilts for this project, which were then included in productions of Dawson's original play, Stories From da Dirt, held at the Old Quindaro Cemetery. Through quilting and performances, Bonds and Dawson sought to make their communities aware of everyday heroes and the complicated history behind the places that people live.

At the 2016 Rocket Grant Ceremony at La Esquina, [14] Bonds reflected on If Da Dirt Could Talk / The Hero Quilt Project, introducing artist, organizer, and activist Michael Toombs as a "living example" of an everyday hero. [15]

Social justice and community involvement

In 2010, Bonds received the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City's Inspiration Grant, [16] which she used to create a quilt celebrating the UMKC Women’s Center's 40th anniversary, as part of the exhibition Her Art: Who does She think She is, which ran from April 1 through May 13, 2011. Her Women's Equity Quilt, [17] a collaborative effort where Kansas City and UMKC community members each made one square for a larger quilt, has been recognized nationally by both the University of Nebraska and the University of Michigan as an "outstanding community effort in addressing social justice". [1]

Bonds has taught workshops locally to schoolchildren in Kansas City and internationally to women in Nairobi, Kenya through the 1994 Community Problem Solving Program International Exchange, [18] Arusha, Tanzania, and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In 2008, she participated in an American Studies Association conference in Istanbul, Turkey. Bonds was recently invited to participate in an exchange in Cuba, with other textile artists. [1]

Bonds describes her intention in making art as creating "small changes in perception" [11] that enact social change. She uses the changes she makes on fabric to illustrate current social issues, and help viewers think about them in new and important ways. She compares small changes in her work to the small change of capitalizing the "R" in NedRa—"I spell my name with a capital 'R' for ART… So, just as changing the 'R' in my name creates a whole new persona, small changes in perception, can change society." [11]

In discussing her quilt made in response to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, titled The Fist and The Finger, Bonds comments on her use of quilting as a softer social platform: "This is a way of creating a tension without intimidating anyone. It's just fabric, after all. When we come into this world they wrap us in a cloth. When we leave the world, they wrap us in a cloth. It's just fabric!" [9] For this particular quilt, Bonds has incorporated black, white, and brown hands, a majority of which are held up in reference to "Hands up, don't shoot", the text in the background of the quilt and the slogan created around the last words and actions of Michael Brown. Tiny cheerleader figures surround a central fist, pointing directly at the viewer. The cheerleaders represent children at school, cheering on a team and raising their hands in class; "Children should only have to put their hands up to ask questions in class or give an opinion. And they should use their fists for cheering on their team, not fighting in the streets." [9]

The Fist and The Finger by NedRa Bonds The Fist & The Finger, mixed-media quilt, created by NedRa Bonds, 2014.jpg
The Fist and The Finger by NedRa Bonds

Bonds was a long-time educator at various schools in Kansas City, but retired to devote herself full time to her art practice. She is still involved in her community, working on collaborative mural projects like the Wak’ó Mujeres Phụ nữ Women Mural and the second version of Dave Lowenstein's Pollinators mural, [19] both in Lawrence, Kansas. An illustration of Bonds was included in a mural titled Kansas Women Work for Justice in Topeka, Kansas. [20]

Other works

Bonds takes symbolism from contemporary political and social issues and cuts it up, pastes it down, and stitches it back together with fabric and beads. She said, "Sometimes I work straight through and create a quilt in a couple of days. At the other extreme, I have one that took two years. I created these little beaded masks that were an inch square, and after I'd created about 40 of them I decided to put them all together into a face." That quilt is called A Kiss from the Ancestors—it incorporates elaborate beaded silhouettes of the faces of a relative and child, with various music symbols, like drums, brass instruments, and the treble clef, which reference Kansas City's important role in the history of Jazz. [9] This quilt was included in the recent exhibition at the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, And Still We Rise: Race, Culture, and Visual Conversations, and was acquired by the museum. [21]

While going through treatment for breast cancer, Bonds has been creating a series of works around her struggle with cancer. She hopes to have these works come together in an exhibition at a hospital, to support those going through treatment and start conversations. [7] Her first series, The Hands that Heal, are intricate individually beaded hands representing and recognizing the hands of every individual that touched her during her treatment, especially those who are often overlooked—the nurse assistants, receptionists, students, and people that helped her park her car. Her second work is titled The Day I Became a Barcode. Bonds has been saving her hospital wrist bracelets and plans to create a three-dimensional work from them. She wants people living with cancer to know that "you have control over your body—it's about how you respond to it." [22]

A recent quote from Bonds summarizes her parallel practices of quilting and activism; "I'm 68 but still keep blank placards and marker pens in the back of my car in case I need to stop and picket somebody. I've got a sewing machine in there too, because I've found you never quite know when a situation might arise in which one is required. I call this 'being ready'." [9]

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Collections

Her work is included in the American Jazz Museum, the Spencer Museum of Art, [29] Sprint, H&R Block, Saint Luke's Women's Center, and Arrowhead Arts Collections. [30]

Bonds has an artist file located in the Spencer Art Reference Library through their Artists' File Initiative at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. [31]

Commissions and workshops

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Missouri–Kansas City</span> Public research university in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.

The University of Missouri–Kansas City is a public research university in Kansas City, Missouri. UMKC is part of the University of Missouri System and has a medical school. For the 2023-2024 academic year, the university's enrollment was over 15,300 students. It is the largest university and third largest college in the Kansas City metropolitan area. It offers more than 125 degree programs over 11 academic units. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Hart Benton (painter)</span> American painter (1889–1975)

Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter, muralist, and printmaker. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faith Ringgold</span> American artist (1930–2024)

Faith Ringgold was an American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.

Marie Daugherty Webster was a quilt designer, quilt producer, and businesswoman, as well as a lecturer and author of Quilts, Their Story, and How to Make Them (1915), the first American book about the history of quilting, reprinted many times since. She also ran the Practical Patchwork Company, a quilt pattern-making business from her home in Wabash, Indiana, for more than thirty years. Webster's appliquéd quilts influenced modern quilting designs of the early twentieth century. Her quilts have been featured in museums and gallery exhibition in the United States and Japan. The Indianapolis Museum of Art holds the largest collection of her quilts in the United States. Webster was inducted into the Quilters Hall of Fame in 1991. The Marie Webster House, her former residence in Marion, Indiana, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993, and serves as the present-day home of the Quilters Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margot Peet</span> American painter

Marguerite Munger Peet (1903–1995) was an American painter. She did not have a far-reaching artistic reputation during her lifetime as she did not often exhibit her work in public. Her family found over 430 of her paintings after her death, and she has been the subject of three major retrospectives in the last 15 years. Her most significant work was created under the tutelage of famed American Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton.

Frederic James (1915–1985) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors. He was associated with the Regionalist art movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miriam McKinnie</span> American painter

Miriam McKinnie also known as Miriam McKinnie Hofmeier, was an American artist.

Sallie Casey Thayer, née Casey was a Kansas City art collector and advocate. Her diverse collection of fine and decorative art became the founding gift of the Spencer Museum of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Layton</span> American "outsider" artist

Elizabeth Layton, also called "Grandma" Layton, was an American artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Red Star</span> Native American contemporary artist

Wendy Red Star is an Apsáalooke contemporary multimedia artist born in Billings, Montana, in the United States. Her humorous approach and use of Native American images from traditional media draw the viewer into her work, while also confronting romanticized representations. She juxtaposes popular depictions of Native Americans with authentic cultural and gender identities. Her work has been described as "funny, brash, and surreal".

Michael Vance Toombs is an American artist based in Kansas City. He is a painter, arts educator, and arts community project director. Toombs is specifically known for his interactive community murals in Kansas City, Missouri. Toombs is the founder of Storytellers Inc., an artists collective that designs and implements work with inner city youth and children in urban communities in Kansas and Missouri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Spencer Art Reference Library</span>

The Spencer Art Reference Library (SARL) is a library housed in the Bloch Building of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. Its collection of over 260,000 visual arts related resources support the work of the museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artists' File Initiative</span>

The Artists' File Initiative (AFI) is an archival project established in 2015 and located in The Spencer Art Reference Library at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

<i>Portrait of Mrs. Cecil Wade</i> Painting by John Singer Sargent

Portrait of Mrs. Cecil Wade or Portrait of a Lady is a large oil-on-canvas painting by John Singer Sargent, depicting Frances Frew Wade, a Scottish socialite. Painted in 1886, it currently hangs in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bisa Butler</span> American fiber artist

Bisa Butler is an American fiber artist who has created a new genre of quilting that has transformed the medium. Although quilting has long been considered a craft, her interdisciplinary methods—which create quilts that look like paintings—have catapulted quilting into the field of fine art. She is known for her vibrant, quilted portraits celebrating Black life, portraying both everyday people and notable historical figures. Her works now count among the permanent collections at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Art Institute of Chicago, Pérez Art Museum Miami and about a dozen other art museums nationwide. She has also exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Epcot Center, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and many other venues. In 2020, she was commissioned to quilt cover images for Time magazine, including the "Person of the Year" issue and its "100 Women of the Year" issue. With a multi-year wait list for private commissions, one of Butler's quilts sold at auction in 2021 for $75,000 USD.

Diallo Javonne French is a filmmaker and photographer. His film May This Be Love aired on the BET program Lens on Talent in 2009 and won first place at the Urban Mediamakers Film Festival.

Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin is an American fiber artist, author, designer, community organizer, and curator. Ruffin creates quilts using fabric, symbolism, and references to African textile motifs that explore issues dealing with human rights, race, and gender. Her work has been exhibited across the United States, Africa, and Europe, at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the White House Rotunda, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She has been a resident artist at the Charlotte Street Foundation and a resident curator at the American Jazz Museum. Thompson-Ruffin is one of the founding members of the African American Artists Collective, a group of African American artists in Kansas City. Thompson-Ruffin was selected to create the Nelson Mandela memorial coverlet by the South African Consulate and the Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. Her work is held in collections such as the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, and others. Her work has been featured on the front covers of New Letters literary journal and of KC Studio Magazine.

Rita Blitt is an American painter, sculptor and filmmaker.

Ilah Marian Kibbey (1883–1957) was an American genre and landscape painter. Her series Airplane Impressions consisted of paintings of views from various flights she took over the Midwest.

Laura Crehuet Berman is an American and Spanish artist and printmaker based in Kansas City. Much of her work consists of abstract multicolored monoprints that show recurrent forms overlapping to produce fields of shapes and hues. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City in 2001, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in 2012, and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas in 2016.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Nedra Bonds: artist file". Spencer Art Reference Library Catalog. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Article: Tangled Roots: Voices, Visions, & the Spirit of Home: NedRa Bonds (Official Website): Artist Statement. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Nedra Bonds: artist file". Spencer Art Reference Library Catalog. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Newspaper Article: The Kansas City Star 1992: "KCK's outspoken voice for the Earth" by Michael Mansur. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  3. ↑ "2014 Reasons to Believe Alumni Honor Roll: Nedra Bonds". Kansas City Kansas Public Schools. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
  4. ↑ Thorson, Alice (October 25, 2014). "The Arrowhead Art Collection recruits some new artists and works". The Kansas City Star. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Wak'ó Mujeres Phụ nữ Women Mural". Rocket Grants: Charlotte Street Foundation: KU Spencer Museum of Art. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  6. ↑ "Rocket Grants". Charlotte Street. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  7. 1 2 Janovy, C. J. (June 23, 2016). "This Kansas City Artist Turned Her Cancer Diagnosis Into A Community Art Project". KCUR 89.3. Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  8. ↑ "Nedra Bonds: artist file". Spencer Art Reference Library Catalog. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Newspaper Article: Kansas City Kansan, 1988: "Quilting skills are handed down" by Leanne Stowe. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Nedra Bonds: The angry quilter". BBC. September 25, 2016. Retrieved July 11, 2018.
  10. ↑ "Nedra Bonds". Spencer Art Reference Library Catalog. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Packet: History & Hope: Celebrating the Civil Rights Movement. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Nedra Bonds : artist file". Spencer Art Reference Library Catalog. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Packet: Artist biography, resume, and statement. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Nedra Bonds : artist file". Spencer Art Reference Library Catalog. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Newspaper Article: The Kansas City Star 1988, "Quindaro quilt becomes focus of state attention" by The Star's staff. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  13. 1 2 "If Da Dirt Could Talk". Rocket Grants: Charlotte Street Foundation: Spencer Museum of Art. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Venues". Charlotte Street. Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  15. ↑ ""Arts, Community S(h)eroes, and Race" Nedra Bonds and Michael Toombs". Rocket Grants: Charlotte Street Foundation: KU Spencer Museum of Art. March 31, 2016. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  16. ↑ "Inspiration Grant Recipients 2010" (PDF). ArtsKC. Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  17. ↑ "40th Anniversary". UMKC Women's Center. Retrieved August 3, 2018.
  18. ↑ "Nedra Bonds: artist file". Spencer Art Reference Library Catalog. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Newspaper article: Kansas City Kansan, 1994: "KCK quilter patches over cultural differences in Africa" by Carmen Cardinal. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  19. ↑ "Return of the Pollinators Mural". Spencer Museum of Art: The University of Kansas. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  20. ↑ "Mural Gallery". The Great Mural Wall of Topeka. Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  21. 1 2 "And Still We Rise: Race, Culture, and Visual Conversations". Spencer Museum of Art: The University of Kansas. Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  22. ↑ "The art of healing: Breast cancer patient's fighting spirit inspires art, participation in clinical trial". The University of Kansas Cancer Center. Archived from the original on August 9, 2018. Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  23. ↑ "Nedra Bonds: artist file". Spencer Art Reference Library Catalog. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Newspaper Article: April/May 2003: "A Point Between Affirmation and Deconstruction" by Kate Hackman. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  24. ↑ "Nedra Bonds: artist file". Spencer Art Reference Library Catalog. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Poster: Wonder Women: SHEroes, Freedom Fighters, & Women Who Kick Butt!. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  25. ↑ Elyse, Morgan (September 13, 2012). "Women to Watch 2012: Focus on Fiber and Textiles". UMKC: University of Missouri-Kansas City. Retrieved August 8, 2018.
  26. ↑ Kretzer, Anna-Maria (October 30, 2013). ""Quilted Friendship: The Art of NedRa Bonds and Nancy Dawson" will be Curated by our Her Art Project Intern, Anna-Maria!". UMKC: University of Missouri-Kansas City. Retrieved July 10, 2018.
  27. ↑ "Her Art Project: WONDER WOMEN: SHEroes, Freedom Fighters and Women Who Kick Butt!". UMKC: University of Missouri-Kansas City. February 3, 2014. Retrieved August 8, 2018.
  28. ↑ "Depictions: People, Places and Things". ARTSkcgo. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
  29. ↑ "Artists". The Spencer Museum of Art. Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  30. ↑ "Nedra Bonds". Spencer Art Reference Library. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Pamphlet: HerArt: Who Does She Think She Is?. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  31. ↑ "Nedra Bonds". Spencer Art Reference Library. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  32. ↑ Bethman, Brenda (June 2, 2011). "Join Us for Nedra Bonds' Quilt Camp!". UMKC: University of Missouri-Kansas City. Retrieved August 8, 2018.
  33. ↑ "Nedra Bonds". Spencer Art Reference Library. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. pp. Pamphlet: "The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Juneteenth celebration". OCLC   904727803 . Retrieved July 12, 2018.

Further reading

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.