AMERICAN SYCAMORE -- STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE

Sometimes a tree can tell you more 
than can be read in a book
~ ~ C. G. Jung

American Sycamore's  fruit
average about one inch in diameter

Lined up on my deck railing, above, are the small fruit of the American Sycamore tree (Platanus occidentalis) -- an ancient tree species that has remained unchanged since before the ice age or about 50 million years ago. 

This tree intrigues me for its antiquity as well as its beauty on the landscape.

Sycamores are on my walking trail that runs along a creek bed. They dangle individually from small stringy stalks all through the winter. I collect them from the ground when they drop off randomly throughout the season.

Sycamore fruit hanging on stringy stalks

photo credit: ETSU Arboretum

Inside my home, I place the fruit in glass jars keeping them as symbolic reminders of the tree's strength and endurance. The trees are massive, can live for hundreds of years, and are one of the oldest species of trees on this earth. They are survivors. We all can be survivors through our strength and endurance.

Scaly bark on sycamore trunks.

When you see a sycamore today you are seeing the same unchanged species that existed  millions of years ago.

Close up of sycamore bark

Bark of a sycamore displays its ancient heritage by being   inelastic -- tearing as the trunk matures allows its white inner white bark to show through. This results are outer scales toned green, cream, brown, and gray against the white bark. It is an amazing look in nature. 

Native to the eastern part of the country they usually are found along creeks, streams and rivers. They usually  dominate the other trees found along these waterways. 

Reference: The Great American Forest, Rutherford Platt

AFRICAN-AMERICAN INFLUENCED QUILT

 African-American influenced quilt

Sometimes we run into something that speaks to us. This was the case about six months ago as I haunted my favorite second-hand store.  Draped over a chair, rather rumpled, was a quilt that I could see was hand-tied. I am not a big fan of hand-tied quilts but I could not resist the pleasure of opening it up to have a look. 


Now I knew what I was looking at  (a quilt) but I really wasn't seeing it. My gut was to buy it. And I did. 

Embroidery stitches with hands

Ever so often I would look at it asking myself questions about its configurations. I knew that it was made in the era of about 1920s to 1950s from the wool and cotton material and the hand-tying. I knew that is was all hand stitched. I knew that it had strips sewn together. But what really got me was the pattern and the hands embroidered on some of the squares. 

Then one day I opened it up and I really saw it. Its asymmetrical patterns jumped out at me. Research told me it was an African-American influenced quilt.

Asymmetrical zig-zag stitching and vertical strips

Since African-Americans first arrived on our shores they brought along their  ancestral textile designs and religious symbols that were soon incorporated into American quilts that they made for themselves  on the plantations. 


The symbols once had meanings that told stories  -- but over  successive generations of  family quilters they became lost. But, the symbols became traditional to future  family quilt makers  despite the missing stories. 

Hands or "mojos"

The tell-tale signs that told me this quilt was African American were: improvisation, multiple patterning, asymmetrical patterning, sewn strips, and symbols. 

According to Maude Southwell Wahlman author of Signs and Symbols: African Images in African-American Quilts, the symbols of red squares or hands are called "mojos" that represent protective charms in the African Kongo culture. So the hands on my quilt were protective charms but in which way? I guess that is part of the story that has been lost. 

I am thrilled to have this quilt as it represents cultural ways that have survived for generations. It also tells me that culturally, past customs and traditions are probably present in all of us. 

I recommend the following resources if you are interested in this subject. Ms Wahlman has done extensive research in this area and has compiled a collection of quilts and oral histories on African American quilts. 

RESOURCES:

Online article

UMKC -- Art Professor Maude Southwell Wahlman Uncovers Quilt Mysteries

Book 

Signs and Symbols: African Images in African-American Quilts. 

Maude Southwell Wahlman