Bisa Butler
(American, b. 1975)
Wangari Maathai, 2020
Quilted wax print fabric
Collection of the Orlando Museum of Art
Purchased with funds provided by the Acquisition Trust
2020.10
American fiber artist Bisa Butler strives to bring mostly unknown African American subjects’ lives into our present discourse, giving them a quiet nobility, a voice in the conversation, and a place in American history. The artist quilts as a way to honor history through a technique that was taught to her at home by her mother and grandmother. “African Americans have a long tradition of quilting, born out of the necessity to keep warm,” she says. Enslaved people used scraps of cloth salvaged from clothing that was cast off or worn out. Some quilters were so talented that they were tasked with creating beautiful quilts that adorned their enslaver’s beds. Butler’s own works use African fabrics from her father’s homeland of Ghana, batiks from Nigeria, and prints from South Africa. Her subjects are adorned with, and made up from, the fabrics of her ancestors, their brown or black skins made up of the colors of the rainbow. These works can also be contextualized within the appropriation of traditional crafts by feminist artists such as Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro; they likewise challenge the historical division between textiles and fine art.
Butler’s portrait of Wangari Maathai was commissioned for the cover of March 2020 TIME magazine. In honor of Women’s Month, the magazine selected women who should have been on the cover of TIME but were not. They then chose the most influential women artists of today to depict these women. Bulter chose Wangari Maathai, a renowned Kenyan social, environmental and political activist. She was the first woman of color to win the Nobel Prize (2004 Nobel Peace Prize). Maathai was the founder of the Green Belt Movement, an indigenous, grassroots, non-governmental organization based in Nairobi, Kenya, that focuses on environmental conservation and community development. She authored four important books, is the namesake for an Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies in Nairobi and left behind a legacy which is still a major force in the world of conservation.
The fabrics used in the piece are from the manufacturer and design house Vlisco’s important Congo project “City of Joy.” The “City of Joy” was set up for women ostracized by their villages because they are victims of war rape and sexual abuse. Thanks to this project, these women now have a place to live, a roof, and food. They are taught the traditional Dutch-wax fabric-making techniques, with the assurance of a job and money to support themselves and their children. Butler’s use of the fabric designed by these women to depict Maathai, emphasizes the importance of community, the sacredness of our planet, and the possibility of a way forward with respect and equal value for all humans.
