In the Jesup Gallery
December 19, 2025, through March 17, 2026
This winter, The Westport Library will feature a multi-gallery quilting exhibition that will span the Sheffer, South, and Jesup Galleries from December 19, 2025, through March 17, 2026. Like a patchwork quilt itself, the show will weave together three distinct yet interconnected exhibits — each exploring how art and narrative bind communities across generations and geographies.
Uniting the exhibits in the Jesup Gallery is Building Bridges, a centerpiece quilt collaboratively created by members of the Southern Connecticut Modern Quilt Guild, the Bridgeport Gee’s Bend community, and quilters from Gee’s Bend, Alabama. The quilt will be presented as a gift to The Westport Library’s permanent art collection, symbolizing creativity, connection, and storytelling stitched into every seam.
Through thread and fabric, this unique and meaningful art exhibition invites viewers to reflect on how art preserves history — and how communities continue to create beauty, meaning, and understanding together.
Gee's Bend Artist Statement
We are not an organization. We are women bound by our Gee's Bend connections and roots. Many of us are related. We are the descendants Dinah Miller, who was captured and abducted in Benin, Africa and illegally transported to Alabama in 1860 aboard the Clotilda, the last known U.S. slave ship. She is credited as one of the first documented quilters in Gee's Bend. I had been told many years ago that the way the women in Gee's Bend quilt is very similar to how the women in Benin weave. Now we know why.
About the Guild
Southern Connecticut Modern Quilt Guild is a community of 42 artists focused on modern quilting for the last 11 years. The Guild offers a space where people can meet, share, learn and create. Interested in advancing modern quilting and supporting growth through art, education, and community. While they focus on modern quilting and are part of the National Modern Quilt Guild, SCTMQG welcomes all quilters and fiber artists. Like the national guild, they seek to foster an inclusive environment built on encouragement and mutual respect where all are welcome.
As a 5O1(c)(3) organization, SCTMQG provides quilts and pillowcases to local organizations in line with their mission and nonprofit status. They have provided quilts for Susie’s House and Homes with Hope in Westport, as well as California Fire Victims. They have partnered with Columbus House in New Haven, providing quilts and pillow cases for people experiencing homelessness. They have also supplied pillowcases to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Harford,and Elizabeth Seton Children’s Center in White Plains.
Learning is a large part of the guild. Members of the guild teach one another, and additionally have teachers come in and teach different quilting techniques, lessons on color, and expand on the history of quilting, fiber, and sewing machines. They host biannual retreats in the spring and fall and meet twice per month to commune, sew together, and work on charity quilts.
Community is very important to SCTMQG. Two years ago, the guild met Tangular Irby when she spoke with her Bridgeport Gees Bend family and friends. She came to a guild meeting and taught about her family in Gees Bend, Alabama, and their quilt making; and she shared her quilts with and spoke about how many from Gees Bend transitioned to Bridgeport, continuing their quilting.
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For more about the Library art exhibits, visit the Art at the Library page.
