piecework
legacies
experimental
quilting
co-curated by
in south florida
nico hough
pangea kali virga
april 10 - july 2 2026
MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC LIBRARY
featuring the artwork of
lauren baccus
regina jestrow
bex mccharen
emily peters
carrie sieh
pangea kali virga
carrington ware
Piecework Legacies brings together experimental quilted works by seven South Florida fiber artists, each interpreting quilting in their own way. Quilts have been part of American material culture since the eighteenth century, functioning both as practical objects for warmth and as artistic forms used for storytelling, decoration, community building, discreet communication, and the preservation of tradition. This exhibition brings together quilts by contemporary artists that acknowledge this history while imagining new iterations and potentialities for the medium.
sawtooth Star quilt square, by mccharen, 2025
JOIN US FOR THE
opening RECEPTION + panel discussion
APRIL 18th 2026, 11-2pm
MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC main LIBRARY
join us for the
16mm film screening
May 30th, 2026, 12-2pm
MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC main LIBRARY
The quilt as a form dates back hundreds of years. Though it has undergone countless transformations, a few traits have held steady: to quilt is to assemble fragments into something coherent. The process often begins with cloth or another substrate that is cut or torn and pieced together. Strictly speaking, quilting is defined by the stitching itself, the act that binds the layers. The quilt and the skills required to produce it are often intended to be passed down from one generation to the next. Beyond these baseline traits, many of which are tested throughout this exhibition, the form has few constraints.
“Implicit in all of my work is labor; the joy of labor, the burden of labor, the processes of transformation, and the work of our lives that often remains unresolved. The invisible labor of the self-construction/preservation, itself parallels the invisible labor of cloth and clothing that women have historically performed and continue to produce.”
Lauren Baccus
our gordon is gone, lauren baccus, 2022, 60x50in mixed fiber
The practice of quilting has historically been performed by working-class and female artisans. It is also an early example of sustainable art. Rather than discard materials, makers have repurposed worn fabrics, work clothes, feed sacks, and other domestic materials. As an art form, quilting has frequently led the way in addressing social issues, creating objects that operate simultaneously as tools, documents, and works of aesthetic invention. The seven women and non-binary artists in the show carry on that legacy and push the envelope further into the contemporary realm.
our gordon is gone (detail)
on keeping touch, lauren baccus, fabric with batting, 28x35, 2022
Piecework Legacies features the work of Lauren Baccus, Regina Durante Jestrow, Bex McCharen, Emily Peters, Carrie Sieh, Pangea Kali Virga, and Carrington Ware. While each artist approaches quilting through a distinct perspective and material language, their works in this show collectively reveal interpretive possibilities of the form. Baccus’ conceptual installation and bas relief work considers the quilt as a political object and an object of comfort, a surface capable of recording history, resilience, pain and connection. The destabilized geometries of Jestrow’s Americana present the quilt as a meditation on national identity, challenging preconceptions and testing the integrity of structures. The quilted pillows and wall-hangings by Peters focus on tactility and calm, embracing the softness and intimacy associated with the medium's connection to rest. Sieh approaches the quilt as a literal archive, embedding media, codes, and fragments of personal information within her work. Ware’s works emphasize lineage and figuration, presenting quilting as a form of knowledge transmitted across generations or as a painter would a canvas. The printed multimedia quilts by McCharen are an emotional record of photographic imagery and personal materials that document the past and imagine transformation. In Virga’s triptych, the quilt expands into a cosmology that maps the past, present, and future through archetypal symbolism and autobiography.
“Things that inspire and influence my work are quilt history, and american quilt history. how different people use quilts in different ways, very much connected with women's rights and political protest. how people survived and how people memorialized other things that were going on in history...the word quilt, i like it because it kinda connects me to the history.- in one word i explain a whole lot"
regina jestrow
Glitter & Gold 3
I, by regina jestrow, ink on burnt muslin, sequin tinssle fabric, silk satin, corduroy, coated nylon, muslin,batting, felt, thread, 49 x 37 in
To best understand the trajectory of the art form and how these interpretations emerge from tradition, one must consider the radical history of American quilting.
In the eighteenth century, in what would become the United States, quilts began as luxury goods for aristocratic households, made from imported chintz and block printed fabrics and used to decorate fine homes. By the nineteenth century, as the Industrial Revolution made fabric more widely available, quilts became democratized. What had once been a marker of elite taste grew into an accessible medium across all social strata, beginning its transformation from decoration into a medium capable of functioning as fine art and social document.
americana quilt 61, by regina jestrow, assorted cotton, hand dyed cotton, batting, thread,13x 13 in
americana quilt 70, by regina jestrow, 2021, assorted fabrics, hand-dyed fabric, batting, thread
62 x 63 x 0.5 in
piecework legacies curator nico hough with artist regina jestrow, at baker hall gallery
A tradition of collective action in American quilting emerged in the form of fundraising quilts. Beginning with anti-slavery abolitionist quilts in the 1830s and continuing through Civil War and temperance quilts, fiber art works were raffled in support of political causes. The raffle quilt was a form of direct political action at a time when women did not have the right to vote.
While many quilts were still the work of a single maker laboring over months or years, Friendship quilts were textiles that gathered signatures from entire communities. Album quilts were a popular collaborative form that assembled individually designed blocks by various artists into a shared composition. A quilt could contain the work of a town, a congregation, or a migration westward.
“Quilting is love and care and legacy”
BEX MCCHAREN
ANCESTOR ALTAR, BY. BEX MCCHAREN, 2024, CYANOTYPES ON COTTON, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS, PAPER, UPCYCLED ANTIQUE QUILT, 80X40IN
Water as solace,2023, by BEX MCCHAREN, Quilted cyanotype on cotton, 21 x 33 in
Under the water, I am free, 2025, by BEX MCCHAREN, Underwater photographs printed on linen, batik dyed cotton, embroidery thread, 35 x 35 in
As the world changed, so did materials and techniques used by quilters. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and especially during the Great Depression, makers repurposed everything from worn work clothes to cotton sacks. Manufacturers even began printing decorative patterns on feed sacks to encourage domestic reuse. These practices transformed post-consumer waste into works of beauty and utility and anticipated forms of material reuse that would later become central to the environmental movement. In Piecework Legacies, this principle is carried on by Regina Jestrow, Carrie Sieh, Bex McCharen, Carrington Ware, Emily Peters and Pangea Kali Virga all use upcycled materials in their work.
ANCESTOR ALTAR (details), BY. BEX MCCHAREN, 2024, CYANOTYPES ON COTTON, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS, PAPER, UPCYCLED ANTIQUE QUILT, 80X40IN
BEX MCCHAREN, 2025, at oolite arts, photographed by diana larrera
For most of this history, quilts were likely to be found on beds, on tables, or folded in closets, far from the white cube of the museum or gallery. This changed in 1971, when the Whitney Museum of American Art presented Abstract Design in American Quilts. Visitors encountered historic quilts displayed on museum walls and noticed that the geometric daring of modern painting had existed in the quilting tradition for generations. Today, the “art quilt” is an increasingly potent force in international contemporary art.
The artists in Piecework Legacies inherit this long and evolving history while pushing its boundaries in new directions.
In Lauren Baccus’ work, the quilt is presented as a low-relief sculpture. Nowhere is this more powerful than in Our Gordon Is Gone (2022), a quilted puff jacket embellished and meticulously beaded in the shape of the raised keloid scars recorded in the 1863 photograph The Scourged Back. The Scourged Back is a haunting image showing the formerly enslaved man, Gordon, seated in a chair with his back to the camera after reaching Union lines during the American Civil War. On Gordon’s back is a network of scars from repeated whippings under slavery, reproduced onto the verso of . The photograph itself has recently been censored and ordered removed from the National Gallery. Meanwhile, Baccus’ gorgeously understated On Keeping Touch is adorned with two sculptural open hands, ambiguously in an embrace or drifting apart but unambiguously sincere. The selection is deftly narrative, exploring the quilt both as a political statement and an object of comfort.
“Quilting and piecework are just one way that we communicate the preciousness of fabrics. I pay homage to the inestimable value of textiles' origins and existence by reusing fabrics that would have been discarded by linen services, who have to throw away anything that is slightly damaged, or no longer wanted by their clients. To further honor the Earth, I dye these fabrics with naturally occurring mineral pigments in a process that uses 80% less water and heat resources, and 0% of the heavy metal mordants required by most dye processes in use today."
emily peters
suññatā
BY EMILY PETERS, 2026, HAND DYED UPCYCLED TEXTILES, 30x47x6cm
In So Soft, an installation of hand-made and hand-dyed pillows, Emily Peters embraces the softness of the form and the notion of the quilt as bedding. The tactility of the work runs headlong into one of the greatest taboos of the museum: don’t touch the artwork. Meanwhile, the neo-floral, post-structural wall hangings approach sculpture. These works emphasize texture, softness, and gravity, with fringed and tufted botanical forms and diaphonous drapery. The Buddhist concepts suggested in titles like suññatā (“emptiness”), Dittadhamma (“here and now”), and sukhavihāri (a person who dwells in bliss), invite reflections on impermanence and embodied presence.
The artists in Piecework Legacies inherit this long and evolving history while pushing its boundaries in new directions.
diṭṭhadhammA (and details) BY EMILY PETERS, 2026, HAND DYED UPCYCLED TEXTILES, 130x50x10cm
so soft, BY EMILY PETERS, 2024, HAND DYED UPCYCLED TEXTILES, dimensions variable
“Like sedimentary layers of earth, the pieces of a patchwork quilt carry deposits of history and memory. They mark time through the gradual accumulation of life lived and labor spent. Quilting has its own visual language, with meanings shaped by political tensions and economic systems. I’m drawn to the language of quilting techniques and motifs in my work because they are loaded with symbolic contrasts between scarcity and abundance as well as preservation and waste, and infused with complicated histories of resistance, grief, and organization."
carrie sieh
self portrait 1995-2022, BY carrie sieh, 2023, painted + pieced paper on canvas, wood lath strip, crocheted glow in the dark yarn and vhs tapes with spools
carrie sieh in her studio at oolite arts, 2024, photography by world red eye
georg baselitz and little hans visit the lowell mill (details), by carrie sieh, 2014,linoleum prints and acrylic on tissue paper and pieced fabrics
palimpsest #2 (pearl pierce), 2025, by carrie sieh, acrylic, paper, polypropylene, ink, polyester thread, silk, thread, pieced cotton fabric, 20 x 4o in
The works on view by Carrie Sieh operate in a cross-disciplinary space between contemporary abstraction and textile tradition. This selection reconsiders the archival potential of the quilt, a form long used to transmit family heritage and personal histories. Through the use of unconventional materials, Sieh invites viewers to see the quilt as a literal carrier of information. In Self Portrait, 1993–2002, she integrates physical media such as VHS tape into the stitched surface, embedding the material traces of a recent personal and cultural past. The multi-panel series Georg Baselitz and Little Hans Visit the Lowell Mill (parts 1–4) incorporates patterns that echo the design of QR codes, suggesting new modes of "reading" within the textile. In the Palimpsest series, Sieh continues this investigation by evoking an archive repeatedly written and rewritten over time.
Regina Durante Jestrow’s Americana quilts explore national identity through geometry. While their blocks and patterns recall traditional American quilt-making, they are wildly experimental in form. Whereas traditional quilt structures rely on repetition and symmetry to create visual harmony, Jestrow discards the rectangular form in favor of startling new spatial arrangements, creating a trompe l’oeil effect in which the quilt appears to bend out of its frame, fall apart, and reassemble itself. This sense of instability is central to the work. The Americana textiles are dyed using natural colorants, including rust from nails, tea leaves and other plants, linking the work to craft traditions while embracing material transformation. The result is a series of works that reflect a world coming apart as it attempts to hold itself together.
“quilting is important to me because it makes me feel connected to a long lineage of people, primarily women, who sewed quilts to liberate themselves, craft community, and bring comfort. it is a timeless craft that threads utility with beauty and serves as a wonderful canvas for all of my ideas, hopes, and dreams. "
pangea kali virga
i watch the illusion with unbearable compassion, BY pangea kali virga, 2022, UPCYCLED TEXTILES quilted, appliqued, beaded, and embroidered, 50x60in
Pangea Kali Virga’s contribution to Piecework Legacies takes the form of a monumental triptych presented in its entirety here for the first time. The three works: I Watch the Illusion With Unbearable Compassion (2022), History Will Always Find You and Wrap You In Its Thousand Arms (2023), and Behold I Show You A Mystery (2026) form a sequence that conceives past, present, and future by drawing on tarot symbology as well as personal narrative and ancestral lineage. Virga constructs each surface from entirely upcycled materials: hand-dyed fabrics, vintage thread, beads, rhinestones, and fragments of personal effects gathered over time. The works are exercises in maximalism and craft, often requiring more than a year of labor to complete. The resulting objects are both artworks about time and metaphors for time itself, kaleidoscopic assemblages of memory and material.
pangea kali virga in her oolite studio working on behold i show you a mystery, 2026, photo by pedro wazzan
history will always find you and wrap you in its thousand arms, BY pangea kali virga, 2023, UPCYCLED TEXTILES quilted, appliqued, beaded, and embroidered, 50x60in
history will always find you and wrap you in its thousand arms (DETAIL), BY pangea kali virga, 2023, UPCYCLED TEXTILES quilted, appliqued, beaded, and embroidered, 50x60in
“my grandma made this quilt, it's a marriage quilt for my mom and dad, like a ceremonial quilt. it's a family heirloom. i've been trying to research the history of it, and apparently it is kind of like a korean way of making a quilt, and i wonder how did this end up in georgia. "
carrington ware
Carrington Ware’s works in this exhibition present two contemporary works alongside a quilt made by the artist’s grandmother in 1982, an inclusion that establishes a point of departure for Ware’s exploration of the medium. This heirloom quilt introduces a vocabulary and structure that carries into the artist’s practice. In Untitled (2019), Ware revisits this lineage through a replication of the cathedral window pattern from her grandmother’s quilt, producing almost a handmade sequel to the heirloom and nodding to the quilt as intergenerational. Unbothered (2019) moves in a different direction, expanding the quilt into a figurative surface in which two dancing figures animate the field of fabric. Seen together, these works exemplify quilting as a medium through which knowledge of craft travels across generations, and how each new quilter shifts the medium.
details and in studio progress image OF "To Nana, From Carrington", carrington ware, 2026, UPCYCLED TEXTILES, patchworked and appliqued
unbothered (and detail), BY carrington ware, 2019, quilted and appliqued textiles, 60x60in
carrington ware'S GRANDMA'S QUILT, CIRCA 1980-1982
Bex McCharen approaches quilting as a space where memory and futurity collides. The artist integrates images directly into the textile surface, working frequently with cyanotype, an early photographic process that produces blue images through sunlight exposure. In works such as Ancestor Altar (2024) and Water as Solace (2023), McCharen’s practice picks up on the craftiness and coincidental sustainability of early 20th century quilt makers by incorporating repurposed materials like unfinished family quilts, old denim, recycled plastics, and other remnants into their work. This new approach to the storied tradition of textile reuse is certainly on display in the intimate I don’t cry myself to sleep anymore (Thank you), which goes as far as incorporating tear-soaked tissues collected during the artist’s divorce. While commemorative quilts for celebrating events like weddings and births are common, a commemorative divorce quilt is certainly a modern departure.
history will always find you and wrap you in its thousand arms (detail), by pangea kali virga, 2023, upcycled textiles, 50x 60in