FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Cindy Deppe, media relations, 641-269-4834

April 17, 2008

“EVERY QUILT A HEARTFELT STORY: A STUDY OF AMERICAN MATERIAL CULTURE” PRESENTATION NEXT WEEK

GRINNELL, IA - In this material world, there are those who make sense of it all through art. And there are those who make sense of it through art and material. Quilt artist and cultural historian Lauren Austin will do both--displaying and discussing her award-winning, themed art quilts on Thurs., Apr. 24 on the Grinnell College campus.

At 4:15 p.m. in Room 101 of the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, Austin will present "Every Quilt a Heartfelt Story: A Study of American Material Culture," using her hand-dyed, hand-painted quilt projects to discuss social themes in American culture. Her art quilts will be displayed prior to her presentation from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Rosenfield Center.

Austin’s appearance at Grinnell is part of an American Studies concentration theory and methods course taught by Associate Professor Kesho Scott, who found Austin’s quilts as a way to illustrate to her students the multidisciplinary aspects of American culture and social life. In the surroundings of Austin’s storied quilts, Scott and her students will also make short presentations about the study of material culture as a link to Austin’s quilt themes of empowerment, gender and race relations, and the Civil Rights Movement. Austin will also meet with students in studio art, gender and women’s studies, African-American history, and women’s history, elements of which are found in her quilt works of art.

"My quilts evolved from traditional geometric patchwork to fabric portraits of people and situations in African American work and life, as well as political and legal themes," Austin said. "Using my past experience with storytelling in law and in African American history, I bring a new perspective to campus."

Austin’s relationship to Grinnell runs deep -- her late mother, Elizabeth Turner Beyene, was a 1957 graduate and Grinnell poet laureate, and her father, Robert Austin, is a 1954 graduate and college trustee. Lauren Austin graduated from Dartmouth College and Syracuse University College of Law before pursuing the arts at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and Syracuse’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. She has made professional contributions as a foreign service officer, human rights commission director, legal writer, and held numerous artist-in-residence-positions throughout the country. Her work has been featured in several national publications.

Local quilters may also hear Austin on Sat., Apr. 26, 10:30-11:30 a.m. at Grinnell FiberWorks, 831 Main St., or at Mayflower Homes, 616 Broad St., 3:30-4:30 p.m. For more information about Austin’s work, go to www.thatblackgirlart.com or http://picasaweb.google.com/blackgirlart. Austin’s visit is sponsored by the American Studies Concentration at Grinnell College, http://www.grinnell.edu/academic/catalog/courses/american/

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