Oral history interview with Peggie L. Hartwell
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 8 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 50 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Hartwell, Peggie L., 1939-
label: Interviewer
content: Malarcher, Patricia
label: Creator
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
label: Names
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
topic: label: Occupation
content: Quiltmakers -- South Carolina
label: Topic
content: Textile crafts
label: Topic
content: Decorative arts
label: Topic
content: African American artists
label: Topic
content: African American quilts
label: Topic
content: Women artists
label: Topic
content: Women textile artists
label: Topic
content: African American quiltmakers
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Hartwell, Peggie L., 1939-
label: Interviewer
content: Malarcher, Patricia
label: Creator
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Peggie L. Hartwell (1939- ) is an African American quiltmaker of Summerville, S.C. Patricia Malarcher is a fiber artist.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 80 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2002 June 3 and July 10
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.hartwe02
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Transcript available online.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Peggie Hartwell conducted 2002 June 3-July 10, by Patricia Malarcher, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in the artist's apartment, on Central Park West, New York, N.Y.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Hartwell speaks of growing up on a farm with her extended family in Springfield, S.C.; female quiltmakers and male storytellers in her family; drawing in sand as a child; her mother's move to Brooklyn; joining her mother and father in New York; growing up in Brooklyn; her awareness of the many cultures in New York and being surrounded by art, including her mother's crocheting and her father's a cappella group; taking tap dancing lessons; experimenting with art in public school; working at various factory jobs after high school until "reconnecting" with art; studying with dancer Syvilla Fort at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York; Fort encouraging her to draw on the studio walls and sew costumes; touring internationally with the theater group Harlem Rhythm USA from 1965 to 1972; her return to the U.S. and receiving a theater degree at Queens College; working at an insurance company to support her art; exhibiting her black and white, pen-and-ink drawings; the narratives and "oral histories" in her quilts; the meaning of various fabrics and colors; participating in "quilting communities" such as the Women of Color Quilters Network, Empire Quilters, and the American Quilter's Society; her lectures, workshops, and residencies; working with children;narratives inspired by childhood memories; her move back to South Carolina; themes in her quilts and "quilting styles" (improvisational, traditional, contemporary, and African American); serving on the board of the New York Chapter of the Women of Color Quilters Network; and planning the exhibition "Threads of Faith" for the New York Bible Association. She also comments on John Cage, Cuesta Benberry, Asadata Dafora, Francelise Dawkins, Carolyn Mazloomi, Edjohnetta Miller, Arthur Mitchell, Harriet Powers, Faith Ringgold, Marie Wilson, and others.