WARP’s 2025 Annual Meeting
Threads of Legacy: Weaving Hope, Tradition, and Justice in the U.S. South
June 4-8, 2025
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
WARP’s 2025 Annual Meeting in Alabama explored the rich and complex textile traditions of the U.S. South. From the Freedom Quilting Bee to the iconic Gee’s Bend quilts, we uncovered stories of resilience, creativity, and community. Members engaged in thought-provoking discussions, field trips to historic sites, and collaborative learning to honor the past while weaving a connected, just, and peaceful future.
Keynote Speaker
Fiber Artist Mary Madison is originally from West Virginia. As a child, she spent hours in the mountainside collecting clay and searing into her memory spectacular sunsets and cloud formations which often appear in her artwork. She is a self-taught weaver, avid ceramicist and landscape tapestry enthusiast. Mary is the author the book “Plantation Slave Weavers Remember- An Oral History” and received her M.S. Degree in Organization Development from Central Washington University.
Local Field Trips
We had a field trip providing bus transportation to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and other points of interest in Birmingham.
The other field trip group visited the quilting community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. The residents of Gee’s Bend are direct descendants of enslaved cotton plantation workers, and their quilts are in the permanent collections of over 30 leading art museums.