MSU Museum opens exhibit on quiltmaker Benberry

A new exhibit premiering this week at the MSU Museum dedicated to quilt research is another installment in a line of exhibits about what officials said was one of the most understudied arts in the world.

The MSU Museum opened its new exhibit Unpacking Collections: The Legacy of Cuesta Benberry, An African American Quilt Scholar on Sunday, which is the research and creations of quiltmaker Cuesta Benberry, considered to be one of the most respected quiltmakers in the world, said Mary Worrall, the co-curator of the exhibit. Benberry died in August 2007, but her impact on the art of quilting still remains, Worrall said.

“She was one of the most significant people in making the study of quilts a scholarly discipline,” she said. “If you are around people who work with quilts, in some way everyone knows her name. If you say ‘Cuesta’ they all react and they usually react in a really positive, really loving way.”

Benberry became a respected advocate of quilt research in the 1960s, Worrall said, and made great progress in advancing the study of quilts across the country.

Quilting used to be an underappreciated art form, even though it’s a great expression of American and African-American culture, Worrall said.

“Quilts are a really strong tradition in the realm of traditional arts,” she said. “It’s real to American art (and) art made by women. There are a lot of stories involved in the making of quilts that reveal a lot about the people who made them and the communities that they came from.”

Benberry specialized in African and African American styles of quilting, which often were created by women, said Lora Helou, the museum’s communication director.

The museum has hosted exhibits featuring Benberry’s work before in the Great Lakes Quilting Center, which holds more than 500 textiles from around the world and is one of the largest quilt collections in the country, Helou said.

“It just grew from there as an interest to research and collect and do exhibits on that area of creative expression that until recently has been an understudied area,” Helou said.

When Benberry died, her family decided to donate pieces to the museum from her personal collection as well as quilts from an exhibit in New York, Worrall said.

“Because of their respect for what we were doing here with quilts and her relationships she had with people here at the museum they decided to give the collection to us,” she said.

Telecommunication, information studies and media senior Daniel Chen visited the exhibit Monday and said he was impressed with how much history was represented in something so simple as a quilt.

“It’s amazing people put so much work into quilts,” Chen said. “There’s so much heritage because quilts get passed down from generation
to generation.”