Tradition/Innovation : Mozell Benson

Tradition Innovation: American Masterpieces of Southern Craft and Traditional Art

Mozell Benson
Waverly, AL
Quilter
Traditional Artist

About the Artist

Growing up the daughter of a sharecropper in rural Alabama with nine brothers and sisters, Mozell Benson learned quilting from her mother at an early age. A National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship recipient in 2001, Benson’s work is celebrated for its improvisational style and bold colors, and has been featured in several exhibitions throughout the United States.

Websites

http://www.nea.gov/honors/
heritage/Heritage01/Benson.html

http://www.nea.gov/honors/
heritage/Heritage01/Benson2.html

http://www.alabamafolklife.org
(PDF File)

Experience the Exhibit

Fiber Arts Gallery
Innovation & Evolution Gallery

What is mastery to Benson?

Benson is still surprised that people consider her quilting as art. She has received an NEA National Heritage Fellowship, and one of her quilts hangs in the American Folk Art Museum, in New York, yet she gives her creations away almost as freely as the fruit and vegetables from her plentiful garden.