Women’s Center celebrates 40th anniversary

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) Women’s Center will host Stitches: An Exhibit of Textiles by Nedra Bonds featuring the Women’s Equity Quilt, created to commemorate the UMKC Women’s Center’s 40th Anniversary. The event will take place on Thursday, Feb. 2, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Miller Nichols Library, Dean’s Gallery, 2nd Floor, 800 E. 51st St., Kansas City, Mo., and the exhibit will run from February 2nd – April 13th. RSVP is available online at http://stitches.eventbrite.com/.

The reception will include a play inspired by the quilt written by local playwright and UMKC alumna Kathleen Shaw and produced by Professor Jennifer Martin of the UMKC Department of Theatre. Dance accompaniment will feature students from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, choreographed by Professor Sabrina Madison-Cannon.

The Women’s Equity Quilt is a community project to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the UMKC Women’s Center. Bonds led quilt workshops in the spring and summer of 2011 where students and community members got the opportunity to express their feelings on women’s issues by making a quilt square. Each participant was encouraged to make 2 squares, one for the Women’s Center and one to keep for themselves. Each quilt square represented its own unique story.

Bonds, a contemporary art quilter, born in 1948 in Kansas City, Kansas, comes from a long line of traditional quilters. Both her paternal and maternal grandmothers quilted, as did her mother and father. As an adult, a private-school and college art teacher, Bonds looked at the tradition with fresh eyes. She embraces quilting as a fine-art form that has grown from a folk tradition, incorporates three-dimensional elements and a variety of textures and colors into her art quilts to interpret the world around her and express her views on various social issues.

About the University of Missouri-Kansas City

The University of Missouri-Kansas City, one of four University of Missouri campuses, is a public university serving more than 15,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students. UMKC engages with the community and economy based on a four-part mission: life and health sciences; visual and performing arts; urban issues and education; and a vibrant learning and campus life experience. For more information about UMKC, visit www.umkc.edu. You can also find us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and watch us on YouTube.