“Quilt making takes me through a wonderfully, breathtaking Rite of Passage. The experience is so beautiful, I continue to overflow with ideas, patterns, symbols and colorful visions that can be shared with family, friends and the world. My indigenous ancestors stay with me the whole time that I work. It is as if they are continuously reminding me of the responsibilities that I have to those who came before and those yet to come. I view myself as an instrument who continues the cycle of traditional art through wall covers, quilts and wearable art.”
Myrah Brown Green has been teaching textile arts for over thirty years and all levels of quilt-making for more than two decades. Myrah is an art historian, fiber/surface and quilt pattern designer, and professional quilt artist, whose quilts are in a number of private collections including the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Museum in Washington, D.C. Her quilt exhibitions include the international Arts in Embassy Program, a one-woman show at Gallery 113 in Brooklyn, NY, the national traveling exhibitions titled Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts and Textural Rhythm: Constructing the Jazz Tradition, Threads of Faith at the American Bible Society, Open House at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Parallel Threads at the New England Quilt Museum, Six Continents of Quilts hosted by the American Craft Museum at the Payne Weber Gallery, and Cultural Continuum: From African Art to African-American Quilts at the Nathan Cummings Foundation in New York.
Myrah is the author of Pieced Symbols: Quilt Blocks from the Global Village (Voyageur Press, 2009) and African Rhythms. Rodale Successful Quilting Library: Choosing Quilting Designs. (Rodale Inc, 2001) Her quilts appear in numerous publications including, U.S. Department of State. Homage to African American Artists Calendar, 2010. Carolyn L. Mazloomi’s publications Journey of Hope: Quilts Inspired By President Barack Obama. (Voyageur Press/ Quayside Publishing, 2010), Textural Rhythms: Constructing the Jazz Tradition (Paper Moon Publishing, 2007) and Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts (Random House, 1996). Two of Myrah’s quilts are featured in Linda Seward’s, The Art Quilt Collection: Designs and Inspiration from Around the World. (Soho Publishing, 2010). Myrah has also contributed to Spike Gillespie’s Quilts Around the World: The Story of Quilting from Alabama to Zimbabwe (Voyageur Press, 2010) by designing twenty quilt blocks and their patterns inspired by quilts indigenous to countries from around the globe.
Myrah has earned a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus in Art History. She continues her academic research in The Presence of African Symbols in Modern Art which has spread to the presence of African symbols in North American quilts.. Myrah regularly presents her scholarship at conferences, colleges, and art institutions which has included, the City College of New York, A Quilter’s Journey (2010), the University of Nebraska’s, The Global Quilt: Cultural Contexts conference at the Quilt Study Center & Museum 4th Biennial Symposium (2009), Temple University’s Cheik Anta Diop Conference, (2008) and the Museum of the American Folk Art in New York City (2008).
Myrah is a member of the Quilters’ Guild of Brooklyn, the American Quilt Study Group, Studio Art Quilt Associates, the Women of Color Quilters Network, Inc., New York chapter and a board member of The Alliance for American Quilts. In 2007, Myrah co-founded Tell Mama Now, an educational program for girls and young women interested in the arts and art history. Currently, Myrah holds the title of Distinguished Lecturer of Art and Advisor to the Dean of Humanities and the Arts at the City College of New York where she also teaches a course that she designed entitled Quilt Making in American History.
Website
http://www.myrahbrowngreen.com
