Wini McQueen facts for kids

Wini "Akissi" McQueen, born in 1943, is an American artist. She is famous for her beautiful quilts and lives in Macon, Georgia. She creates amazing quilts that tell stories. Wini also makes hand-dyed accessories.

Wini uses a special method to transfer images onto her quilts. Her art often explores important topics. These include fairness, different groups of people, and the lives of women. Her quilts have been shown in many museums. These include the Museum of African American Folk Art and the Taft Museum. In 2020, the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Macon, Georgia, had a special show just for her textile art.

Wini McQueen's Early Life and School

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 Artworks by Wini McQueen

Wini McQueen creates many special quilts. Each one tells a unique story.

Ode to Edmund Quilt

One of Wini's quilts is called Ode to Edmund. It honors a man named Edmund G. Carlisle. He was a slave in South Carolina. Edmund taught himself how to read and write. This quilt is red, white, and blue. It includes stories from former slaves. It also has old photos of slaves from 1850. These photos were taken on a South Carolina plantation. The quilt's patterns are like traditional West African fabrics. Wini calls her quilts "urban kente".

How Wini Makes Her Quilts

Wini often uses photocopy transfers in her quilts. This means she puts images directly onto the fabric. Her Family Tree quilt shows this technique. It has pictures arranged in a cross shape. Yet, it keeps the lines straight and even.

She Quilt and Other Collections

The Tubman Museum in Macon asked Wini to make a quilt. Her story quilt, She, was finished in 1994. It shows the lives of women from the Macon area. These stories go back to the 1800s. Three of Wini's quilts are in the collection. They are at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon.

Exhibitions and Shows

In 2014, Wini McQueen was part of an art show. It was at the Macon Arts and Sciences Museum. The show was called Quilts, Textiles, and Fibers In Macon Georgia. Three artists were featured in this exhibition.

Wini's art has been in many other shows. These include:

• Stitching Memories. African-American Story Quilts at Williams College Museum of Art in 1989.
• The Baltimore Museum of Art.
• American Resources: Selected Works of African American Artists in 1989.
• Ties that Bind: A TransAtlantic Journey in 2009.
• Black Artists of Georgia: Selections from the Tubman Museum in 2010.

In 2015, Wini had an exhibition called If Walls Could Talk. It opened at Macon's Tubman Museum. This show had 125 story panels. They were about people from Middle Georgia and Macon. The panels mixed quilting with photo transfers. They also used other art methods.

Wini as a Teacher and Artist in Residence

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

Awards and Special Recognitions

Wini McQueen has received several important awards.

• 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 preparing to spin thread. She called this her "real resume."
• Wini also organized two big art shows. One was in Macon, and the other was in Africa. Both shows highlighted crafts in African-American communities.