Bow Tie Medallion
Ms. Gustina Atlas
2004
Port Gibson, Mississippi
Silk ties
36” x 44”
MSUM 2004:155.1
Photo by Pearl Yee Wong, all rights reserved Michigan State University Museum

Gustina Atlas has fond childhood memories of the quilting bees she attended with her mother during her rural Mississippi childhood. But Mrs. Atlas, who goes by the name Miss. G., "had other fish to fry" and didn't learn to quilt until 1991 when she retired from her job as a high school math teacher and started going to Mississippi Cultural Crossroads – a center for the preservation of the traditional quilting traditions and a quilting hotbed in Port Gibson, Mississippi. Since then, the Mississippi Arts Commission named her and several other women as master folk artists. Miss G. is just one of the mostly retired women, both black and white, who come to the center to quilt, share patterns, pass along and preserve both African American and European American quilting traditions.

From Quilter's Hotbed