Rode to Phila. quilt, Virginia Jean Cox Mitchell

Exhibition Label:
"Personal Geometry: Quilts by Yoshiko Jinzenji and Virginia Jean Cox Mitchell," Feb-2014, Susan Earle and Cassandra Mesick
This quilt celebrates the 1987 Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. According to the artist, it pays homage to the textile printer John Hewson, the folk painter Edward Hicks, artist John James Audobon, botanist John Bartram, and the colonial patriot Daniel Shays. All of these figures are connected to Philadelphia in important ways. The ornate vase in the center refers to John Hewson, an English calico printer who moved to Philadelphia and was part of the procession to celebrate the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The flowers in the vase symbolically refer to the colonies that participated. The artist created a float pulled by a tiger to parade across this ambitious quilt, loaded with motifs and concepts. Philadelphia was the most cultured city in America in 1787. It was home to the first public library and many furniture makers, among other things. Figures such as Benjamin Franklin took to the road to Philadelphia; or, they “Rode to Phila.”

Exhibition Label:
"Kansas Quilts," Jul-1996, Nancy Corwin
On July 4, 1788, Philadelphia celebrated the adoption of the United States Consitution with "The Great Federal Procession." Two hundred years later I created a float parading across a quilt in celebration of that procession and of the bicentennial of the Constitution.

The quilt pays homage to folk painter Edward Hicks, artist John James Audubon, botanist John Bartram, and textile printer John Hewson, who had a float in the 1788 Procession. A vase, much like one of his textile prints, is filled with flowers representing the states that sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

Philadelphia was the first city in the country to have streets named for trees. Branching over the float are leaves from trees whose names were given to streets close to Independence Hall.

The chariot-like float is being pulled by a carousel animal (carved in the Dentzel factory in Philadelphia); astride it is Daniel Shays (of Shays' Rebellion fame) who "rode his tiger all the way to Philadelphia."

Virginia Jean Cox Mitchell