Quilted memory games. Art quilts. Archival echos.
On View from Jan 29 - Feb 26, 2026
Hutchins Library, Berea College
Onyx Patchworks is an interactive art series embracing quilting, game crafting, and archival research to explore the histories of Black Kentuckians preserved in the Berea College Archives and Special Collections. What began as three quilted memory games and educational guidebooks has grown into new art quilts and an exhibition that illuminate shared symbols and stories across the archives and generations. The series invites folk to play through history and engage the archive as a space of tactile conversation and collective memory.
Onyx Patchworks Series Phases
Since 2025, the series has unfolded in the following phases:
Phase One Onyx Patchworks: Storytelling and Play from Kentucky’s Black Cultural Archives
From May to October 2025, phase one involved the creation of three table games based on the three historical figures in the Berea College Archives and Special Collections. Making included immersion fabric dyeing original colors, thread sketched and ink-painted illustrations, and machine piecing and hand quilting that culminated in the creation of over 100 game pieces and three game boards for interactive and intergenerational game play. Players engaged with the craft artistry, archival histories, and playful storytelling of the microstories of Black people in and of Berea, Ky and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The series brought together the community members, from current students to alumni, faculty and library staff, and community members from Kentucky and beyond. Accompanying the quilted memory games are the educational zine guidebooks, Onyx Patchworks Educational (OPE!), providing details about the symbols and illustrations, archival references, and historical resonance of the stories in contemporary memory. As donated artifacts, the memory games and guidebooks are available for public access and play in the Berea College Archives and Special Collections; learn more by visiting the archival finding aid for Onyx Patchworks.
The Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supported the first phase of the Onyx Patchworks creative series with state tax dollars from the Kentucky General Assembly and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information, visit history.ky.gov.
Phase Two Onyx Patchworks: Exploring Black American History in the Berea College Archives
From January to February 2026, phase two involved the exhibition of the quilted memory games alongside archival records. Four additional art quilts were crafted and then put on display with the games and archival materials in the Hutchins Library at Berea College. The four art quilts represent shared symbols across the three table games, thus far. Crafting involved fabric dye painting, machine piecing, applique, and hand quilting to illuminate the shared symbols of mountains, megaphones, classrooms, and ripples that illustrate the impactful stories of Hooks, Laine, and Woodson. Phase two emerged the Onyx Patchworks exhibition zine, a live catalogue showcasing artist reflections, creative research deep discoveries, and in-depth explorations of the making processes and stories within the Onyx Patchworks series.
A special thank you to the archivists, librarians, and student works who were integral in making the exhibition possible and successful!
Read more in the exhibition zine.
Follow the work as It unfolds.
Stories from the studio, rooted in material logic, cultural memory, and creative research.
Engage with the series:
