Nationality American Education University of Michigan Role Author | Name Kyra Hicks | |
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Born October 1, 1965 (age 58)
Los Angeles, California ( 1965-10-01 ) Genre Non-fiction, History of quilting Books Black Threads: An Africa, Martha Ann's Quilt for Queen, This I Accomplish: Harriet P, Franklin Roosevelt's Postage, How to Self‑Publish Your Own | ||
Alma mater University of Michigan | ||
Kyra E. Hicks (born October 1, 1965) is an author, quilter and quilt historian. She is best known for writing about African-American quilt history and encouraging quilt documentation. She specializes in creating original story quilts, such as Black Barbie, which is in the permanent collection of the Fenimore Art Museum in New York City.
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Education
Kyra Hicks graduated from Howard University and the University of Michigan. She works professionally as an ecommerce and marketing director. She lives in Arlington, Virginia.
Quilting
Hicks specializes in creating narrative or story quilts. The themes she focuses on include being a single black woman, politics, family, and religion. All of her quilts include words as well as designs.
Her Patriotic Quilt (1995) is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. It includes the name of the American black women Lani Guinier, Joycelyn Elders, and Anita Hill.
Hicks created her Black Barbie quilt, displayed in the Fenimore Art Museum's exhibition Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art, to address issues of body image, western society's obsession with beauty, and the neglect of the African American when creating toys and other ephemera for children. The illustration features the American Barbie doll depicted as a black woman, with the text "Barbie" above it, and below it the phrase: "Was never intended for me."
Research
In her quilt history research, Hicks found only the second known photograph to exist of Harriet Powers, an African-American slave, folk artist and quilt maker from rural Georgia, who used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events on her quilts. Only two of her quilts have survived: Bible Quilt 1886 and Pictorial Quilt 1898.
Hicks also confirmed the price of the Pictorial Quilt paid by the owner Maxim Karolik who donated the quilt to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Hicks was one of four African-American women quilters profiled in a PhD dissertation by Yolanda Woods, "New World African Conjurers Who Edify and Heal the Community.