Signature Cloths

When was the last time you wrote your signature? What does your signature say about you? If in the digital age we don’t use signatures, how will we authentically represent ourselves?

Right now, you are surrounded by “Signature Cloths,” quilts covered with distinctive, hand-written and embroidered autographs of ordinary people. These signatures illustrate shared purposes, new communities, individuality, and—at the most basic level—evidence of the signer’s existence.

Guest Curator Lynn Setterington raises questions about how humans create connection through a simple act—signing one’s name. Setterington studied traditional quilts from the IQM collections, then created individual and collaborative artwork, what she calls “signature cloths.” Though unified in name, the signature cloths represent unique stories, each told through the process of signing and stitching. Some are solemn, some are whimsical, but all are earnest representations of meaningful, social, experience all the signers shared.

Featured Media

Meet the Artist

Lynn Setterington is a textile artist and a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, England. Her recent work and community engagement projects were inspired by her investigation into the history and contemporary relevance of signature quilts (a quilt or cloth where the surface pattern is made up primarily of sewn signatures) that began during a fellowship to the International Quilt Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2010.

Works in the Exhibition

Original
Multiple signatures
Probably made in Peoria, Illinois
Circa 1941
IQM 1997.007.0574, Gift of Robert & Ardis James

Rose Schinerling’s family, friends and neighbors signed this quilt, but so did an assortment of people she likely met in her daily life, including doctors, dressmakers, a beautician and politicians. Today, you might find a similar list in a digital address book. Signature quilts solidify a moment in time and give us clues to the events and people important to a particular person’s life.

Original
Multiple Names
Possibly made in York County, Pennsylvania
Dated 1920
IQM 1997.007.0809, Gift of Robert & Ardis James

One person wrote all 450 names by hand before they were embroidered in a fundraising project for the Maple Grove Church. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, quilts emerged as an effective means of raising money, in which every person named contributed a few cents to participate. This quilt is more about raising funds than recording a social network.

Album
Multiple signatures
Probably made in Fountain County, Indiana
Dated 1932
IQM 1997.007.0840, gift of Robert & Ardis James

This quilt may have been made by family members affiliated with a church. Five groups of last names recur across several blocks, and the quilt contains numerous Biblical references. The images also may be a clues to identity—look for the Noah’s Ark, the Log Cabin, and the garden path stretching past a pond with swimming ducks. Consider the block with the large blue star surrounded by hearts that holds the initials WISMA. Is this a name? A location? Initials that represent a particular organization? Or is this a signature?

Original
Multiple signatures
Possibly made in Pennsylvania
Dated 1916
IQM 1997.007.0880, gift of Robert & Ardis James

What is a signature worth? This elaborately embroidered quilt includes lists of ministers, pastors’ aids and official board members who served the church illustrated in its center block. The assembly of individuals found on the quilt likely paid different amounts, depending on the number of names on each block. Though they were linked by their involvement with this project, it is likely the only link connecting the majority of signers.

Crazy
Multiple signatures
Probably made in Turtle Creek, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Dated 1896
IQM 1997.007.0952, gift of Robert & Ardis James

What event or purpose brought together the hundreds of individual names on this unique crazy quilt? We may never know. Crazy quilts typically are the creative expression of a single person. This quilt combines the community effort seen in signature quilts with the elaborate fabrics and embroidery of a crazy quilt.

Schoolhouse, Hourglass Variation
Made by Verna L. Black
Probably made in Pana, or Salem, Illinois
Circa 1948-1955
IQM 2006.043.0088, gift of Robert & Ardis James

Verna Black, a teacher at the Woodard School of Illinois, is commemorated on the schoolhouse block of this bright quilt, along with an embroidered roll call of the many students she taught during her teaching career. This quilt demonstrates the social relationship between teacher and student, and the importance a school has in a community.

Signature
Maker unknown
Made in Urbana or Champaign, Illinois
Dated 1924
IQM 2006.043.0135, gift of Robert & Ardis James

The twelve “wheels” of this classic redwork fundraising quilt are built around circles that feature either a church member’s name, an organization or a business. The merchants and business owners identify themselves with icons of their trades – a smith, indicated with horseshoes; the Cream Station, a milk can; and a shoe repair service, a woman’s button-up boot.

Works in the Exhibition

This exhibition was made possible through funding from the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. The Nebraska Arts Council, a state agency, has supported this exhibition through its matching grants program funded by the Nebraska Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. Visit www.artscouncil.nebraska.gov for more information. Additional support provided by Friends of the International Quilt Museum.

Past

Event Date

Friday, September 5, 2014 to Sunday, May 31, 2015