Carolyn Mazloomi

Background

Mazloomi was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to a family of amateur artists and painters.

Education

She graduated from Northrop University in Inglewood, California, and worked in Los Angeles as an aerospace engineer She continued her quilting experiments while earning her Doctor of Philosophy in aerospace engineering from University of Southern California in 1984.

Career

She is a strong advocate for presenting and documenting African-American-made quilts. In the early 1970s, she encountered an Appalachian quilt at a market in Dallas that began her passion for quilting. Mazloomi is now retired from her job as an aerospace engineer and Federal Aviation Administration crash site investigator.

She lives in Ohio with her family.

In the mid-1980s after trying unsuccessfully to expand her small Los Angeles-based African-American quilting circle, Mazloomi placed an advertisement in Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine requesting correspondence with other quilters who shared this frustration. Her advertisement and the resulting correspondence led to the formation of the, a national organization of 1,700 members.

Mazloomi works in narrative quilts that tell stories through visuals. Common themes include music, inspired by an aunt who owned a Louisiana juke joint, and the African-American experience during the Civil Rights movement.

Mazloomi currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for American Quilts.

Achievements

• In 1999 she was awarded the Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Award for Best Nonfiction book, for her book Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts. In 2003 Doctor Mazloomi was awarded the first Ohio Heritage Fellowship Award. Her book Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts received the “Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year” award from the American Library Association. In 2014 Doctor Mazloomi was named a National Education Association National Heritage Fellow, she was the 2014 recipient of the Bess Lomax Hawes Fellowship.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts

    (Featuring 150 color photographs, "Spirits of the Cloth" i...)

  • Threads of Faith: Recent Works from the Women of Color Quilters Network

    (Book by Mazloomi, Carolyn)

  • Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts by Carolyn Mazloomi (1998-11-03)
  • Threads of Faith: Recent Works from the Women of Color Quilters Network by Carolyn Mazloomi (2004-05-25)
  • Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts by Mazloomi, Carolyn(November 3, 1998) Hardcover
  • Threads of Faith: Recent Works from the Women of Color Quilters Network by Carolyn Mazloomi (2004-05-25)

Membership

Founding members of the WOCQN included Carolyn, Claire East. Carter, aRma Carter, Cuesta Benberry, Meloydy Boyd, Michael Cummings, Peggie Hartwell, and Marie Wilson.