Sarah Mary Taylor
{{Infobox person
| name = Sarah Mary Taylor
| image = Sarahmarytaylor.jpg
| caption = Taylor in 1997
| birth_date = August 12, 1916
| death_date = July 10, 2000
| death_place = Yazoo City, MS
| birth_place = Anding, MS
| occupation = Artist/Quilter
| known_for = Fabric Artist & Designer
}}
Sarah Mary Taylor (August 12, 1916, in Anding, MS – July 10, 2000, in Yazoo City, MS) was an African American quiltmaker from Mississippi whose work attracted interest in the 1970s.{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2 February 2021 |title=Profile: Sarah Mary Taylor (1916-2000) |url=https://blackartstory.org/2021/02/02/profile-sarah-mary-taylor-1916-2000/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230602053449/https://blackartstory.org/2021/02/02/profile-sarah-mary-taylor-1916-2000/ |archive-date=2 June 2023 |access-date=30 March 2021 |website=Black Art Story |language=en}}
Life
Sarah Mary Taylor was born on August 12, 1916, in Anding, Mississippi.{{cite web |title=Sarah Mary Taylor |url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/sarah-mary-taylor-30931 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230207200230/https://americanart.si.edu/artist/sarah-mary-taylor-30931 |archive-date=7 February 2023 |accessdate=2 October 2017 |website=Smithsonian American Art Museum}} She learned quilting from her mother Pearlie Posey when she was young. She lived on plantations in the Mississippi Delta and worked as a housekeeper, cook, and field hand. Late in her life, Taylor was forced to retire due to her failing health. She then earned income through quilting, using the skirts of dresses to create pieced quilts. Taylor garnered more interest in her appliquéd quilts after Pecolia Warner's quilts were the subject of University of Mississippi professors academic interest in the 1970s.
Both Taylor and her mother created quilt and pillow designs that employed red Vodun doll-like figures. Her Mermaid quilt (earlier known as Rabbit) is evocative of the mojo hand, featuring blue hands adjacent to red squares and vodou figures.{{cite book|last1=Wahlman|first1=Maude Southwell|title=Self-taught Art: The Culture and Aesthetics of American Vernacular Art|date=2001|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|location=Jackson|isbn=1-57806-380-9|page=164|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PEOCblFHdfoC&q=%22Sarah%20Mary%20Taylor%22&pg=PA164|chapter=African Charm Traditions}} According to art historian Maude Southwell Wahlman, Taylor "has made numerous quilts that play on the symbolic connotations and aesthetic qualities of the hand image." Wahlman writes that Taylor's Cross quilt may represent a continuation of the Kongo cosmogram, a Kongo religious symbol.{{cite journal|last1=Wahlman|first1=Maude Southwell|title=African Symbolism in Afro-American Quilts|journal=African Arts|date=November 1986|volume=20|issue=1|pages=74–75|doi=10.2307/3336568|jstor=3336568}} Taylor's quilts also employ incongruous and clashing color combinations.{{cite book|last1=White|first1=Shane|last2=White|first2=Graham|title=Stylin': African American Expressive Culture from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit|date=1999|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca, N.Y.|isbn=0-8014-8283-6|page=82|edition=1st|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PCoTzfhswSYC&q=%22Sarah%20Mary%20Taylor%22&pg=PA82}} She was commissioned to make a hand quilt for the film The Color Purple. Both this quilt and an appliquéd word quilt of hers form part of the Ella King Torrey Collection of African American Quilts.{{cite news |last1=Che |first1=Jenny |date=12 December 2014 |title=Philadelphia Museum of Art to Show Two Centuries of Black Artists |work=The Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/philadelphia-museum-of-art-to-show-two-centuries-of-black-artists-1418415540 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |access-date=12 July 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230713040917/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/philadelphia-museum-of-art-to-show-two-centuries-of-black-artists-1418415540 |archive-date=13 July 2023}}
Taylor married five times and had one child, Willie, who preceded her in death. She died July 10, 2000.
Taylor's quilts have been displayed in Naperville, Illinois,[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2068439/arient_family_collection_exhibition/ "Art Reception," Daily Herald (October 27, 1996): 389.] via Newspapers.com {{open access}} Santa Fe, New Mexico,[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2068448/sarah_mary_taylor_quilts_displayed_in/ "Artist's Reception," Santa Fe Reporter (March 29, 1995): 18.] via Newspapers.com {{open access}} and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,{{Cite web |title='Hands' Quilt |url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/298002 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326183012/https://www.philamuseum.org/collection/object/2980022 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |access-date=12 July 2023 |website=Philadelphia Museum of Art |language=en}} among other American cities. Marilyn Nelson wrote the poem "The Century Quilt" for her.{{cite book|last1=Waniek|first1=Marilyn Nelson|title=The Fields of Praise: Poems|date=1994|publisher=LSU Press|isbn=0-8071-4120-8|pages=72–73|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq2_Q3SBHlcC&q=%22Sarah%20Mary%20Taylor%22&pg=PA72}}
Taylor's work was included in the 2004 Richard E. Peeler Art Center exhibit, "Mind Storm: Contemporary American Folk Art from the Arient Family Collection."{{Cite book |url=https://jstor.org/stable/community.34280355 |title=Mind Storm: Contemporary American Folk Art from the Arient Family Collection |publisher=DePauw University |year=2004 |pages=13 |language=en |jstor=community.34280355 |jstor-access=free}} In 2020, The New Yorker noted there was an online exhibit of Taylor's work, "[https://www.shrine.nyc/sarah-mary-taylor-press-release Don't Mess with Me]," on August 31, 2020, by the Shrine Museum, New York.{{Cite news |last=Fateman |first=Johanna |date=31 August 2020 |title=Sarah Mary Taylor |volume=96 |pages=5 |work=The New Yorker |issue=25 |issn=0028-792X}}
References
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Category:20th-century American artisans
Category:Textile artists from Mississippi
Category:People from Yazoo County, Mississippi
Category:20th-century American women artists
Category:20th-century American artists
Category:20th-century African-American women