At left, Gladys-Marie Fry displays the African-inspired elongated triangle pattern that appears in one of the quilts exhibited at the Center. This piece and the strip quilt below, were stitched by Lucile Young in the 1930s.
Although a prolific quilter, she apparently used only store-bought blankets and machine-made bed covers once she moved from the country into Tuscaloosa, where she worked for one family for sixty-four years. After her death in 1992, a grandson discovered her creations carefully folded lengthwise between the mattresses and springs of her beds.
	The influence of Africa figures in another of Lucile Young's works--the spiderweb stars quilt (c. 1950), a detail of which appears at left. The eight-pointed star symbolizes God in parts of west Africa.
This particular star motif, fashioned from pieced diamonds, is featured in the flag quilt at right that Mary Maxtion made in 1995.
	In the quilt at left (c. 1975-80), Mary Lucas uses pieced triangles to render a Bear's Paw design. In a whimsical treatment of this traditional pattern, she includes irregular stripes, deliberately misaligning the segments.
(Photos: Kent Mullikin)

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