“It’s in us. Family is in us. Nurturing is in us. Wood is in us. It’s all there. Fabric. It’s part of our heritage.”

Winston Andrews was one of six African American artists who spoke at the Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando, Florida, as part of a panel on “Preserving the Past Through Craft” in February 2024. The program was one of the highlights of the history center’s annual event, Honoring Black Heritage, Arts & Culture.

Andrews, a wood sculptor, joined soft-sculpture artist Darlene Allen, quilters Lauren Austin and Lisa Moore, illustrator and chain-stitch embroiderer Teighlor Johnson, and designer of doll fashions Carmen Nibbs to share how their artistry is deeply interwoven with their ancestry, family histories, and cultural legacies. Their stories, rich with connections to nature and experiences of the African diaspora, showcase the profound ways art can transcend generations.

The artists were part of a project titled Cultural Sustainability & Legacy Planning for Craft Artists, a partnership between the history center, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s African American Craft Initiative, and the Craft Emergency Relief Fund. It was conceived to build connections between artist communities and local cultural institutions and to assist makers in safeguarding their stories. Not present for the February panel but also participating in the project were quilter Linda Lee and Eddie Osborne, a handcrafter of traditional African musical instruments.

While the artists’ backgrounds, mediums, and inspirations are as diverse and vibrant as the work itself, they all express a deep awareness of how the past—the legacies of their cultural ancestries and the impact of their family histories—influences the work.

“Fabric has history—there’s culture and history. And I love culture and history,” said Carmen Nibbs, reflecting on her childhood in the Virgin Islands and the historical significance of the madras fabric so prominent in the fashion she saw there. She went on to explain that enslaved peoples, who were forced to wear white or beige to work in the fields, coveted the bright fabrics of their ancestral clothing. The bright madras fabrics became a status symbol, marking the clothing for festive times and celebrations.

From a young age, when she began sewing doll clothes from the scraps left over from her seamstress grandmother, Nibbs understood that fashion and culture were inextricably linked. “When I started sewing for dolls, even as a child back in the ’70s, African prints and the dashiki, that was a big thing. So my dolls had dashiki, my dolls had African print, because people were wearing it.”

When Nibbs started sewing again as an adult, inspired by her granddaughter’s interest in Barbie dolls, memories of her childhood in the Caribbean came back to her. She began sewing doll clothes with the intention of honoring those traditions. “A lot of my craft is a reflection of modern life, of modern living, but it is also cultural and tells a story.”

Similarly, Eddie Osborne, who has participated in the Florida Department of State’s Folklife Apprenticeship Program as a master craftsperson, sees his crafting of traditional African instruments as a way to honor the cultures from which they originate. He limits the use of commercial technology in his work to ensure that they remain recognizable as traditional instruments.

Like Nibbs, Osborne traces his interest in craft and folk culture back to childhood, watching his father and friends making instruments such as nail-keg drums and kazoos and playing them at weekend gatherings. He began making his own handcrafted instruments at a young age, but traveling abroad as a young man ignited his interest in learning and utilizing traditional methods to create African folk instruments. He learned through observation and informal study, both overseas and in the United States.

Originally from Trinidad, Winston Andrews sees his woodwork as a manifestation of his feelings of connection to his ancestors. “We were slaves originally somewhere in the past,” he explained. “When emancipation came to the island and the people of Trinidad were free, I think they thought they were free to run away from the land because the land was a prison.”

For him, the act of sculpting with natural materials is a way to reclaim his ancestral connection to the land. This approach informed one of his works, “Ram Ram,” which was inspired by his childhood memory of a wealthy Indian man who lived in his neighborhood. “He owned a lot of land, while me and my father rented. The wealth that was the land, we were never able to harness.”  For Andrews, this sensibility is a foundational aspect of craft art. “I think we try to reclaim what we lost: the land.”

Quilter Lauren Austin nodded along as she listened to Andrews’s account. It resonated with her own family history, which felt the impact of the displacement and mass migration of Black Americans. “I think that disconnection from the land was, for me, that we were driven away from it by violence, but it didn’t drive out that connection to nature.” 

She recounted the story of her grandfather, who left Savannah for upstate New York in 1922 at the height of Ku Klux Klan activity and racially motivated violence, taking seeds from the South along with him. “He grew collards and okra and everything from home,” Austin said. “They were different plants from what others had, and he took care of and protected them.”

Nature—and Black people’s relationship to it—is the subject of all Austin’s current work. Her quilts are rich with the colors of nature and the textures of lush three-dimensional leaves. “That connection, I think we all have it in our hearts,” she said.

For Linda Lee, sharing her history—the lived experiences of her family and her community—became the catalyst for her work as an artist. She began quilting later in life, after decades as a farmworker in Apopka, Florida, the site of an ecological disaster caused by years of chemical runoff from industrial farming. The ramifications of direct, long-term exposure to pesticides were catastrophic to the community of farmworkers, who experienced tremendous health problems. The situation was so dire that, as Lee recalled, the community hosted eighteen funerals in one weekend and thirteen in another.

Feeling overwhelmingly compelled to memorialize those affected and share the story of what unfolded, Lee led the charge for the Lake Apopka Farmworker Memorial Quilt Project. While she had done a bit of sewing in her childhood making doll clothes, she had no previous experience quilting. In recounting her story to Dale Finley Slongwhite, author of the 2014 book Fed Up: The High Costs of Cheap Food, she recalls the morning she began quilting: “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she remembers thinking, “but I’m set to do it.”

In addition to Lee’s story and quilts being featured in Fed Up, her work has also been showcased in museums and numerous community events. Her art has been not only a means to share her story but also an important contribution to the history and experiences of her community.

Lisa Moore’s passion for quilting stems from a lifelong exposure to the art, influenced by the women in her family who were crafters and sewers. She finds inspiration in her family, using worn fabrics that embody personal histories. “Using quilts as a medium to tell stories and, particularly, the story of my family,” she says, emphasizes the unique narrative woven into each piece.

One poignant example is a quilt she made from her late brother-in-law’s clothes for his children, which allowed them to connect with his memory in a tangible way. Her current series, Pass the Peas, documents aspects of her family history, incorporating rich ancestral stories and childhood memories. It celebrates the communal tradition of harvesting and shelling peas with her grandmother and other women relatives. “We grew up farm-to-table. We didn’t know it was called farm-to-table. It was called surviving,” Moore reflected. Through her quilts, she preserves her family’s legacy and connects with a broader quest for identity and heritage.

While all the artists’ work represents an affinity for the past, they are always looking to the future. Soft-sculpture artist Darlene Allen recognizes her role in the art world as a pioneer and innovator. “I am one of the first Black female artists to do this type of work,” she notes. Her distinctive creations include characters, animals, chess sets, and tic-tac-toe games, crafted with mohair, nontraditional fabrics, and antique accents.

Allen’s artistry is influenced by her family’s legacy. After her mother died when Allen was young, she was able to connect with her mother through her mother’s friends, discovering a creative bond. “The work I do, that’s my mother,” she said. “That’s the connection I didn’t know I had with her.”

Allen’s mission is to inspire others. “I want to be the example that tells someone, ‘I did,’” she said, in discussing the limitations she felt others placed on her from a young age. She hopes emerging artists can look to her as an example of someone who exceeded those expectations. Her legacy encourages finding joy in one’s craft and embracing heritage. “What you see in my art is me, my past, my history, my future,” she said.

Illustrator and textile artist Teighlor Johnson is the youngest artist who participated in the project. She has been mastering chain-stitch embroidery for seven years, with the past three years dedicated to it as her artistic focus.

“I’m a ’90s kid through and through,” Johnson said, adding that she draws inspiration from pop culture, mythology, and memories of learning to sew from her grandmother. Her work delves into her identity as a Black woman, exploring her place in culture and history. She merges traditional methods with modern influences, such as African mythology and pop culture, to create a unique narrative.

For Johnson, art is a medium to preserve and honor the past while innovating for the future. She connects with her heritage through craft, aiming to strengthen and reconnect bonds. Reflecting on the relationship of younger generations to the past, she notes, “We’re looking for our stories. We’re discovering them. And not only that—we are building them into our stories.” Her work symbolizes this blend of tradition and contemporary creativity, demonstrating continuity between innovative methods and cultural narratives.

The work of all eight artists exemplifies the resilience and creativity that have defined the African American experience for centuries. Their craft is not merely a reflection of history but a living testament to their cultural legacy—a spirit echoed in their commitment to honoring their ancestors while forging a path forward.

“I refuse to have gloom and doom about Black people,” Austin proclaimed. “We have come 400 years in this country in horrible circumstances, and we have bested it every single time and come up with excellence in all the arts.”

Katie Kelley is the curator of exhibitions at the Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando, Florida.