Bisa Butler's quilts based on Gordon Parks photographs
Clip: Season 17 | 3m 28sVideo has Closed Captions
Artist Bisa Butler's quilt portraits based on Gordon Parks' photographs
Artist Bisa Butler's quilt portraits based on Gordon Parks' photographs. Bonus video from the EAST episode
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Bisa Butler's quilts based on Gordon Parks photographs
Clip: Season 17 | 3m 28sVideo has Closed Captions
Artist Bisa Butler's quilt portraits based on Gordon Parks' photographs. Bonus video from the EAST episode
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipI am working on a series of quilts based off of#the works of Gordon Parks.
He was the first Black photographer commissioned by Life magazine.
He photographed Black life.
He photographed rural life and he was a master at telling a#story.
I won a Gordon Parks Fellowship in 2022 and with that fellowship, you have access#to his incredible archive of photographs.
In 1956, Gordon Parks traveled to Mobile, Alabama with two white colleagues.
He was assigned to photograph life in the segregated South.
They#were all threatened because the people in Mobile did not want photos to be published showing the#separate but unequal situation with the water fountain.
But they persisted.
And the interesting# thing about Gordon Park's photos is a lot of them are in color.
So I'm looking at color photos#and responding to that in African fabric.
He's a master at creating a beautiful composition that's# also haunting.
And it's been a real experience for me to choose fabrics that help me sort through#my own thoughts on that, what life was like for them.
There's one photo of a beautiful woman in a lace dress with a little girl.
They're shopping downtown.
The woman is standing outside the store with this look of stress.
Do I go in in the colored entrance or do I just go off?
And#at what age is it appropriate to have a child experience the harshness of life?
I am using#a peachy orange fabric with white on it.
Looks just like a creamsicle.
So that you're getting something that's very sweet and soft and good, but you're also getting the pain because I include# the colored sign above their heads in the quilt.
In order for him to get out of town safely, his white colleagues had to drive the#car and he had to hide in the back.
And then that spread was published in#Life magazine and it was very powerful.
I have a photo of a young man#with a he had a straw boater hat and suspenders on.
It was taken around 1945.
It's something about that photo that grabbed#me.
It's his gaze and it's also because the location said he was at 7th and Georgia#Avenue which is right at Howard University.
So, it's just interesting for me to see#this young man in his really dapper like spring outfit knowing that I'm sure I stood on that same corner having no idea that not only was the young man there, but so was Gordon Parks.
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Clip: S17 | 9m 42s | Silversmith Ubaldo Vitali makes original work and restores historical silver (9m 42s)
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Clip: S17 | 1m 39s | Three generations at the Institute of American Indian Arts (1m 39s)
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Clip: S17 | 6m 28s | Meet engravers and silversmiths at the silversmithing traditional cowboy arts symposium (6m 28s)
Roberto Lugo's poetry & Orange and Black vessels
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Clip: S17 | 4m 2s | Roberto Lugo is a potter, poet, activist and educator (4m 2s)
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Clip: S17 | 4m 27s | Nina Zannieri, Executive Director of the Paul Revere House on Paul Revere's Midnight Ride. (4m 27s)
Milliner working with custom fabric flowers
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Clip: S17 | 1m 27s | Milliner Gigi Burris on working with M&S Schmalberg flowers (1m 27s)
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Clip: S17 | 1m 30s | Lost wax casting silver horses and crab candleholders at Ubaldo Vitali's studio (1m 30s)
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Clip: S17 | 2m 20s | Institute of American Indian Arts student on her work and exhibition (2m 20s)
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Clip: S17 | 1m 34s | Institute of American Indian Arts Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (1m 34s)
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Clip: S17 | 2m 13s | IAIA student Whisper Crow Dog & IAIA alumni on Terran Last Gun on ledger art (2m 13s)
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Clip: S17 | 59s | Institute of American Indian Art landscape and environment (59s)
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Clip: S17 | 1m 43s | The hogan on the Institute of American Indian Art campus (1m 43s)
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Clip: S17 | 3m 40s | Community at the Institute of American Indian Arts (3m 40s)
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Clip: S17 | 2m 24s | Institute of American Indian Arts Artist-in-Residence program (2m 24s)
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Clip: S17 | 1m 22s | The Institute of American Indian Arts archives consists of works/records from faculty, alumni (1m 22s)
Helena Hernmarck's weaving documentation
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Clip: S17 | 2m 24s | Tapestry artist Helena Hernmarck's weaving documentation (2m 24s)
Hawaiian fiber practices and feather work
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Clip: S17 | 2m 59s | Hawaiian cordage and knotting and feather standards in 'Iolani Palace (2m 59s)
Colette Fu - tattooed lady & Terraced Rice Fields
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Clip: S17 | 2m 36s | Pop-up book artist Colette Fu on her books based on her travels to China (2m 36s)
Colette Fu - social practice lab
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Clip: S17 | 1m 29s | Pop-up book artist Colette Fu on working in her community (1m 29s)
Now PlayingBisa Butler's quilts based on Gordon Parks photographs
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Clip: S17 | 3m 28s | Artist Bisa Butler's quilt portraits based on Gordon Parks' photographs (3m 28s)
Bisa Butler's first artistic influences
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Clip: S17 | 3m 48s | Bisa Butler's first artistic influences (3m 48s)
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Preview: S17 Ep2 | 1m | Watch a preview of WEST, celebrating the continuum of heritage and handmade in the American west. (1m)
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Preview: S17 Ep1 | 1m | Watch a preview of EAST highlighting diverse expressions behind modern craft in the eastern region (1m)
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