From everyday home quilters to groups like Gees Bend, quilting has been a long-standing textile craft within Black southern communities. Join us at Stenton this Black History Month as we come together for a community quilting session led by Mama Carla of Keepers of the Culture https://kotcinc.org/.
Please bring scraps of fabric to add to the quilt. Other materials and refreshments will be provided. No experience required.
MAMA Carla “Mom Read” Wiley has been a preschool specialist, parenting educator, storyteller/oral historian, quilt historian and writer for over 35 years. Blending the nationally known Mother Read Family Literacy model with her Frator Institute Human Race Studies Certification, Bartol Foundation Trama Informed teaching artist certification, she has written curriculum to be used throughout Philadelphia to dismantle racism in education.
Carla uses storytelling and quilting / sewing techniques as a means of teaching young women in her Rites of Passage program the steps toward female maturity. Working with institutions as diverse as The Frator Heru Institute, Aetna, The Penn Museum, The School District of Philadelphia, Land for Public Trust,The Olney Culture Lab ,The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Civil War Museum, The African American Museum and The Free Library of Philadelphia, Carla has created programs that use stories to bridge the gap between cultures and peoples. With an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, she researches tirelessly and shares her findings with all ages through the written and spoken word as well as through fiber art.
Carla was a quilt instructor at Temple University’s PASCEP program as well as a proud PASCEP Advisory Board Member. She has served on Philadelphia’s First Book committee and taught family literacy throughout the tristate area. Carla Wiley was a Preschool teacher and worked for The Free Library of Philadelphia for over 20 years in various positions ending her career there as a Library Assistant in 2019. Currently, Mama Carla, along with story crafting and telling, teaches quilting and leads nonprofit sewing projects throughout Philadelphia as part of Art Centric Studios with her partner Cheri Barron Davis in schools, churches and libraries.