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Oct. 24, 2011 — Award-winning fabric artist Louise Silk returns to Allegheny College for a residency from Nov. 3-5 as part of the college’s Year of Sustainable Communities. In addition to showing a documentary on quilt making on Thursday, she will present a slide talk at the Meadville Council on the Arts on Friday and a quilting workshop at Allegheny College on Saturday. The events are free and open to the public.

Silk’s visit to Allegheny will begin on Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7:30 p.m. with a screening of the documentary “The Quilters of Gees Bend” in Carnegie 212 on the Allegheny campus. A small rural African-American community in Alabama, Gees Bend is known for the quilts that the town’s women make featuring a distinctively bold design based on simple patchwork patterns reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The documentary explores the lives of the quilters as it documents their art.

Silk will present a slide talk, “The Sound of a Needle: The Quilt Maker’s Voice,” on Friday, Nov. 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the Meadville Council on the Arts. From traditional quilt patterns like the Log Cabin with its story of hearth and home through the quilts of Gees Bend, Silk will demonstrate the varied ability of quilts to voice stories, share views, engage social change and memorialize loved ones as the artist speaks through cloth.

On Saturday, Nov. 5, Silk will conduct a quilting workshop, “Log Cabin Variations in the Spirit of Gees Bend,” from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the college’s Campus Center. Participants will plan and begin the execution of a quilt using the free form design and construction principles inspired by the quilts of Gees Bend. Pre-registration for the workshop is required: contact Elizabeth Weiss Ozorak at eozorak@allegheny.edu or 814-332-2394 to register and to get a list of supplies that each participant will need for the workshop.

Silk has been creating art that combines aesthetics and functionality with meaning and memory for over 40 years. She describes her work as “quilt-centered, utilizing spiritual themes, photo transfers, recycled fabrics from old clothing, and embroidery.”

She began quilting in 1971 after being inspired by an article in Ms. Magazine about quilt making as a woman’s art form. Over the past 30 years, her work has been included in the National Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Quilts as well as many private corporate collections. In addition to commissions and exhibitions, she lectures and teaches.

More information on Louise Silk and her work can be found at www.silkquilt.com.

The Year of Sustainable Communities at Allegheny College is a series of activities, workshops and events aimed at inspiring the campus and community to examine what makes a community sustainable in the richest sense of the word—that is, able to provide a good quality of life to those who live and work there and to be resilient in the face of challenges.

For more information on the Year of Sustainable Communities, including a schedule of events, visit www.allegheny.edu/events and click on the “Year of” tab.