Associate Curator Elaine Y. Yau reflects on how the landmark exhibition illuminates quilting as both an art form and a vessel of cultural memory
Sherry Ann Byrd, Pieced 1990; Richmond, California. Irene Bankhead, Quilted 1990; Oakland, California. Cultural Merger at Crossroads, USA. Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, rayon; hand pieced and quilted, 241.3 x 191.8cm. Bequest of the Eli Leon Living Trust, BAMPFA. Courtesy Sherry Ann Byrd. Photo: Kevin Candland
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) is presenting ‘Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California’, on view until 30 November 2025. This major exhibition marks the first comprehensive museum survey to examine African American quiltmaking traditions in relation to the histories of Black migration to the West Coast. Featuring more than 100 quilts by approximately 80 artists, the exhibition draws primarily from the transformative Eli Leon bequest, the world’s most extensive collection of African American quilts, while also incorporating contemporary works by Bay Area artists.
Curated by Dr Elaine Y. Yau, Associate Curator and Academic Liaison at BAMPFA, in collaboration with Matthew Villar Miranda, ‘Routed West’ situates quilts as objects of resilience, remembrance, and intergenerational care. In this interview, Yau discusses the curatorial vision, the role of the Eli Leon collection, and how quilts continue to shape cultural memory and community life.
Installation view of ‘Routed West’ at BAMPFA. Photo: Chris Grunder
ART AFRICA: What led you to center the exhibition around the Second Great Migration, and how did that historical movement shape the stories you wanted to tell through the quilts?
Elaine Yau: The theme of quilts in migration emerged over the course of several years of processing the African American Quilt Collection at BAMPFA, which comprises over 3,000 objects gifted to the museum in 2019. As my colleagues and I began taking inventory and cataloguing the quilts, I encountered many artists who were born in the southern United States and came to the San Francisco Bay Area between 1940 and 1980. I was also learning about quilts that were carried and kept by those who left the South, and soon I knew there was an exhibition that could grow from this idea. From a scholarly point of view, migration was an exciting lens because quilts hadn’t been fully explored through it before. Many people are familiar with quilts from the region around Gee’s Bend, Alabama, a community known for its Black residents who fought to stay on their land in the South. Quilts from this region are often regarded as a reflection of a sense of rootedness in place. This collection provided an opportunity to consider rootedness in relation to movement and diaspora.
Installation view of ‘Routed West’ at BAMPFA. Photo: Chris Grunder
The Eli Leon collection is at the heart of ‘Routed West’. How did his role as a collector and self-taught quilt scholar influence your curatorial approach and understanding of the work?
Indeed, this exhibition could not have been organised without Eli Leon’s passion, collecting, and meticulous record-keeping. Many of the attributions and outlines of quiltmakers’ biographies come from his archive, which was also part of his bequest. That said, his own scholarship, dating back to the 1980s and 1990s, sought evidence-based connections between African American quilts and African textiles. This interest resulted in a formalist approach that was polarising for many. And so I did not want Leon’s scholarship to distract from the quilts themselves and how quiltmakers, their families, and communities imbued meaning into the medium. Therefore, much of the research for the exhibition centres on the history of Black families and quiltmaking.
In some instances, Eli Leon is inextricable from a quiltmaker’s production. For example, he and Laverne Brackens, a quiltmaker from Fairfield, Texas, had an agreement in which she would give him the first look at any new quilts she made before offering them for sale to others. What eventually emerged was very similar to a patron-artist relationship, where an artist becomes savvy and understands the collector’s tastes. In this case, Brackens catered to Leon’s interest in improvisational aesthetics. In other instances, Eli Leon was a catalyst for creating new connections among quiltmakers of this migrant generation. Throughout the show and catalogue, I acknowledge his role in all these respects. Still, I did not want this story to overshadow the artistic achievements of the quiltmakers included in the exhibition.
Laverne Brackens, Pieced 1994; Fairfield, Texas. Willia Ette Graham, Johnnie Wade, Quilted 1994; Oakland, California. Untitled (Star put-together). Cotton, cotton/polyester blend, polyester, rayon; hand pieced, hand quilted, 194.3 x 177.8cm. Bequest of the Eli Leon Living Trust, BAMPFA. Courtesy Laverne Brackens. Photo: Kevin Candland
As you traced the provenance of many quilts and connected with the artists or their families, were there any moments that surprised or deeply moved you?
Yes, several! One particularly profound moment was talking with the sister of a deceased owner of a patchwork pillow that was found with a cache of portrait photographs. She not only shed light on the identities of many of the sitters, but there was one photograph of railroad tracks in a landscape that she recognised immediately as the stretch of land near the family farm. Railroad tracks are storied symbols of forward movement, but this insight transformed this specific track into the pathway home. It became a poignant illustration of how many people experience quilts and textiles as a means of connecting with familiar places.
It has also been a great honour to get to know three generations of quiltmakers who are still with us: Laverne Brackens, her daughter Sherry Ann Byrd, and her granddaughter Bara Stewart. This exhibition marks the first time they have seen their work in an art museum, and they were able to experience that with their extended families. I am so happy that the museum could help foster greater recognition of their quiltmaking in their lifetimes.
Installation view of ‘Routed West’ at BAMPFA. Photo: Chris Grunder
The exhibition closes with quilts by contemporary Bay Area artists. How did you approach curating that section, and what connections did you see between past and present quiltmaking traditions?
I knew about midway through the curatorial process that I wanted to connect the history of BAMPFA’s quilts to quiltmaking in the present. With so many of the artists in the show working in Oakland, Richmond, and Berkeley, it was only natural that I approach members of the African American Quilt Guild of Oakland. As an organisation, they are twenty-five years old, and so they literally pick up where the show leaves off; they are also filled with so many talented artists. In collaboration with their president, I issued an open call for submissions that explored themes featured in the exhibition. We were able to include all works that were submitted! The final selection is more strongly narrative and figurative than what preceded it. Still, there were many continuities with the quilts in the BAMPFA collection. The contemporary works are all vehicles for cultural memory, interwoven with the lives of ancestors and explorations of creative expression. There is also a functional cover, which was made for the artist’s daughter and son-in-law on the occasion of their fifth wedding anniversary. So even today, utility and gift-giving continue to be motivations for quiltmakers.
Installation view of ‘Routed West’ at BAMPFA. Photo: Chris Grunder
Quilts have often been overlooked in mainstream art history. How does ‘Routed West ‘contribute to shifting those perceptions—both within the museum and in the broader art world?
‘Routed West’ could have easily been a “greatest hits” kind of exhibition—and there are many exceptionally beautiful works in the show. That said, I wanted to offer an art history that paid homage to the multifaceted nature of quilts’ artistic and cultural significance: as crafted objects, family heirlooms, material culture of Black life in California (not just the southern US), and interwoven with social practices of love, healing, and collective care. The essays in the catalogue cover a lot of that ground. In the galleries, I also wanted to resist the ways modern art museums have historically compared quilts with paintings and isolated their visual and graphic qualities (i.e., their flatness). With the installation design, we attempted to incorporate curves and showcase quilts in a round shape as much as possible, including draping and folding them on forms. We wanted to explore ways they might appear in homes and bedrooms without being too literal. I am pleased with the way we were able to showcase quilts as textiles, capturing their weight, pliability, and shape-shifting qualities.
The quilts in ‘Routed West’ also occupy the largest gallery space in the museum, approximately 9,500 square feet, and in this way, the show gestures towards the scope and scale of quiltmaking’s presence in the US that deserves more attention. It’s exciting, and I know many visitors have been struck by the sheer beauty and presence of everyday artists represented by the quilts on view.
Installation view of ‘Routed West’ at BAMPFA. Photo: Chris Grunder
What kinds of conversations do you hope this exhibition sparks? What would you like to see it inspire in artists, visitors, and communities connected to these quiltmaking traditions?
Most of all, this exhibition draws more people into the power of quilts to spark connections to the past and with one another in the present. Quilts are fascinating art objects that illuminate the lives of everyday African American people, many of whom were working class, contending with the traumas of segregation, racial violence, and economic precarity. I hope that the show signals the potential for the larger quilt collection to explore art’s connection with resilience and resistance—and for people in the Bay Area to become curious about an art form that flourished right where they live. I hope visitors might pull out quilts they have in attics or garages and start their own research. I also hope people are inspired to start making quilts themselves and find others to learn with. Quiltmaking is a highly accessible art form for self-expression, community building, and social action. It’s also built on a culture of creative repurposing and mending. Anyone can place themselves within these “sturdy traditions”, as my friend Jess Bailey is fond of saying, and participate in these radical quilting practices that hold our social fabric together.
‘Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California’ is on view at BAMPFA, Berkeley, until 30 November 2025. For more information, visit bampfa.org.
