Cotter’s Field 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 is inspired by Mitchell’s son Cotter and shows the artist’s great love of family. When Cotter was just eight years old, he gave his mother a crayon drawing that he said was a quilt pattern. Years later, to create a Freedom Quilt in recognition of Cotter’s majority (or 21st birthday), Mitchell used his design to create this work. The Fence Row border is entwined with bittersweet. This version is a nine-square and the original, which Cotter owns, is a sixteen-square.

Exhibition Label:
"Kansas Quilts," 6-Jul-29-Sep, 1996, Nancy Corwin
This is a "freedom quilt" made for my son's 21st birthday. The geometric design of the center blocks is from a crayon drawing he did when he was eight years old. Those blocks are enclosed by a border of the pattern Fence Row, entwined with bittersweet. Above each corner sunflower is an eagle--a symbol of freedom--also copied from one of his childhood drawings. The hearts represent the four mothers of different generations in the family who were alive at the time the quilt top was made.
Virginia Jean Cox Mitchell