Wini McQueen facts for kids

Wini "Akissi" McQueen, born in 1943, is a talented American artist. She is famous for making beautiful quilts. Wini lives in Macon, Georgia. She creates amazing quilts that tell stories. Her art often uses hand-dyed fabrics. She also uses a special way to transfer images onto her quilts.

Wini McQueen's art explores important ideas. These include themes about people, communities, and women's lives. Her quilts have been shown in many museums. These include the Taft Museum and the Museum of African American Folk Art. In 2020, a special show of her textile art was held. It was at the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Macon, Georgia.

Early Life and Education

Wini McQueen was born in 1943. Her birthplace was Neptune Township, New Jersey. She grew up in Durham, North Carolina. Wini went to Howard University. She graduated from there in 1968. After college, she lived in Washington, D.C.

Amazing Quilt Artworks

Wini McQueen's quilts are known for telling stories. She often uses a technique called photocopy transfer. This allows her to add images to her fabric art.

Ode to Edmund Quilt

One of her famous quilts is called Ode to Edmund. This quilt honors a man named Edmund G. Carlisle. He was an enslaved person in South Carolina. Edmund taught himself how to read and write. The quilt uses red, white, and blue colors. It includes stories from formerly enslaved people. It also shows old photos from a plantation in 1850. The patterns in the quilt are inspired by traditional West African fabrics. Wini McQueen calls her quilts "urban kente". Kente is a colorful woven cloth from Ghana.

Family Tree and She Quilts

Her quilt Family Tree shows pictures arranged like a cross. These pictures keep the quilt's straight lines. The Tubman Museum in Macon asked Wini to make a quilt. She finished her story quilt, She, in 1994. This quilt shows the lives of women from the Macon area. It goes back to the 1800s. Three of Wini McQueen's quilts are part of the collection. They are at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon.

Exhibitions and Public Art

In 2014, Wini McQueen was part of a special art show. It was at the Macon Arts and Sciences Museum. The show was called Quilts, Textiles, and Fibers In Macon Georgia. She also showed her work in other exhibitions. These included Stitching Memories in 1989. Another was Ties that Bind in 2009.

In 2015, her exhibition If Walls Could Talk opened. It was at the Tubman Museum in Macon. This show had 125 story panels. They told stories about people from Middle Georgia. The panels mixed quilting with photo transfers.

Wini McQueen is also a teacher. She works with the art and history program at the Tubman Museum. She has given talks at the Lanier Center of the Arts. She was an Artist in Residence at the Georgia National Fair in 1990 and 2014.

Awards and Recognition

Wini McQueen has received several important awards. These awards celebrate her amazing work.

• She won the Georgia Council for the Arts Award two times.
• She received the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Grant. This grant helped her study textile traditions in the Ivory Coast. Wini said this experience was very important to her. She watched the sunset in Africa. She saw women getting ready to spin thread. She called this her "real resume."
• She has organized two big art shows. One was in Macon, and the other was in Africa. These shows highlighted crafts in African-American communities.