Marsha MacDowell – författare

Name an illness, medical condition, or disease and you will find quiltmaking associated with it. From Alzheimer's to Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Lou Gehrig's Disease to Crigler-Najjar Syndrome, and for nearly every form of cancer, millions of quilts have been made in support of personal well-being, health education, patient advocacy, memorialization of victims, and fundraising. In Quilts and Health, Marsha MacDowell, Clare Luz, and Beth Donaldson explore the long historical connection between textiles and health and its continued and ever growing importance in contemporary society. This lavishly illustrated book brings together hundreds of health-related quilts—with imagery from abstract patterns to depictions of fibromyalgia to an ovarian cancer diary—and the stories behind the art, as told by makers, recipients, healthcare professionals, and many others. This incredible book speaks to the healing power of quilts and quiltmaking and to the deep connections between art and health.

In the southernmost region of the African continent, women have been piecing together materials—textile construction techniques commonly used in quilting— to create bed coverings throughout the history of the San and Khoi peoples. From the late seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century, an influx of Dutch, French, Indian, and British military personnel, traders, miners, and missionaries came to South Africa, bringing with them their own cultural traditions, including making and using quilts. Today, the making of quilts in South Africa is flourishing.Quilt Arts of South Africa stitches together the history, production, and significance of quilt making from its earliest appearance in the continent's southernmost region to the twenty-first century. With input from curators, linguists, art historians, activist artists, and folklorists, this book presents disparate yet connected inquiries into a wide-ranging history of the quilt. These perspectives connect a rich expressive art to place, showing how the quilting traditions in South Africa together reflect a unique cultural history and natural landscape.Itself pieced together from diverse voices, Quilt Arts of South Africa offers glimpses into the histories and meanings of quilting in South Africa.

Quilts and Human Rights offers a new understanding of the history of global human rights as seen through textiles of awareness and activism. Of all the textile forms linked to human rights activities, one form-the quilt-has proved an especially potent and popular form for individuals, working alone or as part of organized groups, to subversively or overtly act for human rights. Through a description of this activity over time and space, Quilts and Human Rights advances awareness of critical human rights issues: suffrage, race relations, civil wars, natural disasters, HIV/AIDs, and ethnic, sexual, and gender discrimination. Quilts and Human Rights pays tribute to the individuals who have used needle skills to prick the conscience and encourage action against human rights violations.