RELEASE DATE: FEB 20, 2026
New Weatherspoon Installation Honors the Mother of African American Quilting
Greensboro, NC: Black Southern quilting is as rich and vibrant today as it ever was, and the Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro is delighted to showcase this thriving practice in multiple galleries in 2026, starting with a collaborative project by North Carolina artist Precious D. Lovell. Harriet’s Powers is a multi-sensory site-specific installation that commemorates the work and life of the 19th-century Black quiltmaker Harriet Powers (1837–1910), the woman often referred to as the mother of African American quilting. Combining artist-stitched elements, sculpture, and collected historical artifacts, the work is, in Lovell’s words, “an altar-totem-tree of life for Powers and for all Black female quilters.”
Harriet’s Powers is now on view through July 25, 2026. Its programming features the event “In Conversation: Curator Dr. Sharbreon Plummer and Artist Precious D. Lovell,” a discussion of the legacies and ongoing impact of Black Southern quilting between Lovell and the curator of the companion quilt exhibition Of Salt and Spirit, Dr. Sharbreon Plummer. This lively exchange will be part of the Weatherspoon’s Spring Open House on Thursday, April 23, from 5:30 to 7:30pm.
Juliette Bianco, the Weatherspoon Art Museum’s Anne and Ben Cone Memorial Endowed Director, notes, “Providing a platform for renowned North Carolina–based artist Precious Lovell to respond to and further develop the impact of an important exhibition demonstrates the true potential of the Weatherspoon. Harriet’s Powers is not only the museum’s most ambitious commission of a new work of art to date, it also embodies the best of our work: community collaboration, cultural and artist responsiveness, and mission-driving change. Great art should push us to think differently, and I could not be prouder of the Weatherspoon staff, particularly curator Raechel Kaleki Cook, more impressed by UNCG student contributors, or more grateful to artist Precious Lovell for her expansive vision.”
Born and raised in North Carolina, Lovell has long rooted her creative practice in both the Southern stitching traditions she learned from her ancestral mothers and the global textile traditions that she has researched in her travels around the world. In 2024, as the Weatherspoon began plans to present Of Salt and Spirit: Black Quilters in the American South, on view February 7–August 1 and on loan from the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Mississippi, the museum invited Lovell to create work in conversation with that exhibition.
The resulting work uses carefully selected imagery, objects, and symbols to situate Powers’s life within African American history and the ways in which Black women across time have created and continue to create lives for their families, their communities, and themselves. This compelling installation acknowledges injustice, recognizes resilience, and celebrates hope. The often communal nature of quiltmaking is also expressed through a collaged soundscape for the work that evokes the conversations and music that so often enliven Black quilting bees.
As a project, Harriet’s Powers also embodied collaboration. Lovell’s research began with a visit in November 2024 to see Of Salt and Spirit at the Mississippi Museum of Art and to talk with its curator, Dr. Sharbreon Plummer, and a number of the quilters. Back in North Carolina, Lovell worked in her Raleigh studio and spent several days on campus with UNCG students from Consumer Apparel and Retail Studies to sew the large circles, known as “yo-yos,” in the artwork’s buntings. She also partnered with Grammy-nominated musician and sound designer Bill Toles to arrange and record the installation’s soundscape with students from UNCG’s Pop Tech program in the School of Music.
The Weatherspoon invites visitors to explore the synergy of this installation in tandem with the quilts featured in Of Salt and Spirit and experience for themselves the power of this storied practice.
A special thanks from the artist and the museum to the following faculty and student collaborators: Janinah Burnett, Assistant Professor of Commercial Voice, and Pop Tech students Chris Hendrix, Kyelle Leonard, Chianne Spencer, Sarah St. Clair, Chandlar Walton, and Jasmine Woodard; Melanie Carrico, Associate Professor in the Department of Consumer, Apparel, and Retail Studies (CARS), and CARS students Janiyah Bryan, Breana Connelly, Jada Moody, Kamron Ray, and Gabrielle Wilson. Sound design: Bill Toles. Additional music: “Cristo Redentor,” by Duke Pearson, and “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” music by Billy Taylor, lyrics by Billy Taylor and Richard Lamb
Image: Precious D. Lovell, Harriet’s Powers, 2026 (detail). Image courtesy of the Artist. Photographer Sally Van Gorder.
About the Weatherspoon Art Museum
Mission
Embracing its public service role, the Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro fosters the ability of art to impact lives and connect multiple communities.
History
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro was founded by Gregory Ivy in 1941 and is the earliest of any art facilities within the UNC system. The museum was founded as a resource for the campus, community, and region, and its early leadership developed an emphasis—maintained to this day—on presenting and acquiring modern and contemporary works of art. A 1950 bequest from the renowned collection of Claribel and Etta Cone, including prints and bronzes by Henri Matisse and other works on paper by American and European modernists, helped establish the Weatherspoon’s permanent collection. During Ivy’s tenure, other prescient acquisitions included a 1951 suspended mobile by Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning’s pivotal 1949-50 Woman, and the first drawings by Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson to enter a museum collection.
In 1989, the museum moved into its present location in the Anne and Benjamin Cone Building designed by the architectural firm Mitchell Giurgola. The museum has six galleries and a sculpture courtyard with over 17,000 square feet of exhibition space. The American Alliance of Museums first accredited the Weatherspoon in 1995 and renewed its accreditation most recently in 2025.
Collections + Exhibitions
The collection of the Weatherspoon Art Museum is one of the foremost of its kind in the Southeast. It represents all major art movements from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Among the nearly 7,000 works in the collection are pieces by such prominent figures as Henry Ossawa Tanner, Edward Weston, Joseph Stella, David Smith, Jackson Pollock, Elizabeth Catlett, Louise Nevelson, Gordon Parks, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Cindy Sherman, Adrian Piper, Betye Saar, Amy Sillman, Nick Cave, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Sanford Biggers. The museum regularly lends to major exhibitions nationally and internationally.
The Weatherspoon is also known for its dynamic exhibition program. Through a lively annual calendar of exhibitions and a multidisciplinary educational program for audiences of all ages, the museum provides an opportunity for visitors to consider artistic, cultural, and social issues of our time—enriching the life of our university, community, and region.
About UNC Greensboro
UNC Greensboro is a learner-centered public research university with nearly 13,000 students in eight colleges and schools pursuing more than 150 areas of undergraduate and 200 areas of graduate study. Recognized nationally for helping first-generation and lower-income students find paths to prosperity, UNCG is ranked No. 1 most affordable institution in North Carolina for net cost by the New York Times and No. 1 in North Carolina for social mobility by the Wall Street Journal. Designated an Innovation and Economic Prosperity University by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, UNCG is a community-engaged research institution with a portfolio of more than $67M in research and creative activity. The University creates an annual economic impact for the Piedmont Triad region in excess of $1B. Please visit uncg.edu and follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, Bluesky and LinkedIn.
Weatherspoon Art Museum
UNC Greensboro
1005 Spring Garden Street
Greensboro, NC 27412, 336-334-5770, weatherspoon@uncg.edu