Monday, October 26, 2026 · 6:30 PM – 7:45 PM
Smith Commons (5th floor), Sargent Hall, Suffolk University — 120 Tremont St., Boston, MA
Look closely at a crazy quilt and you’ll find a life woven in the mosaic of textured surfaces: a scrap of wedding silk, a ribbon from the county fair, a souvenir swatch, a sliver of someone’s favorite dress. Gaining distinct popularity by the end of the nineteenth century, “crazy” quilting was more than a technique, but how makers kept record of what mattered to them. What did it mean to spend hundreds of hours of nimble labor into something you’d sleep under every night? These quilts reveal how ordinary women turned scraps and keepsakes into personal archives—and what their quilts can still tell us about the relationship between memory and material culture today. Tenesha Carter Johnson is a curator and cultural historian, with a particular investment in American quilt and textile histories. Her work explores the relationship between material culture and public history, wherein quilts serve as records of lived experience and historical intervention. She holds a BA in Art History from Spellman College and MA in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture from Bard Graduate Center. Her research has contributed to leading institutions and digital resources such as the…