QUILT INDEX RECORD

12-8-953

Who documented this quilt?

Michigan Quilt Project; Michigan State University Museum Collection

Where are the records for this quilt housed?

Michigan State University Museum

Michigan Quilt Project Number:

86.1318 AIQP

If this quilt is owned by a museum, enter the accession number:

7787.1

Object label:

Daybreak or Dawn
Charlie Grinnell and Julia Grinnell
Hidatsa, Parshall, North Dakota
1995
Collection of Michigan State University Museum acc.#7787.1

Essay:

Native artists have adapted the beadwork, rug weaving, and basket weaving patterns of their cultural heritage or of their own experience into their quilts. The Grinnells made their quilt in a pattern similar to their Hidatsa beadwork.

Daybreak or Dawn is featured in the MSU Museums' traveling exhibit, To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions. Ben Young Bear, the Grinnell's nephew, made his version of the quilt as a tribute to his aunt and uncle. Both quilts are now a part of the MSU Museum's collection.

Native artists have adapted the beadwork, rug weaving, and basket weaving patterns of their cultural heritage or of their own experience into their quilts. The Grinnells made their quilt in a pattern similar to their Hidatsa beadwork.

The Grinnell's Daybreak or Dawn is featured in the MSU Museums' traveling exhibit, To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions. When their quilt was stolen at an exhibition venue in Virginia, Ben Young Bear, the Grinnell's nephew and a survivor of the Red Lake High School massacre, made his version of the quilt as a tribute to his aunt and uncle. The stolen quilt was returned and now both quilts, with their similar looks but different, intertwined stories, are in the MSU Museum collections.

Quilt's title:

Daybreak/Dawn

Names for quilt's pattern in common use:

Bricks

Quilt top made by:

Grinnell, Charlie; Grinnell, Julia

Quilted by:

Grinnell, Charlie; Grinnell, Julia

If you are the quilt owner, how did you acquire this quilt?

Purchased the quilt

Where the quilt was made, city:

Parshall

Where the quilt was made, county:

Mountrail

Where the quilt was made, state:

North Dakota (ND)

Time period:

1976-1999

When was the quilt started?

1995

When was the quilt finished?

1995

Quilt is presently used as:

Museum collection

Quiltmaker's gender:

Female

Quiltmaker's city:

Parshall

Quiltmaker's state:

North Dakota (ND)

Quiltmaker's ethnic background/tribal affiliation:

Hidatsa

Quiltmaker's spouse's/spouses' and /or partner's/partners' name(s):

Grinnell, Julia

This is a:

Finished quilt

How wide is the quilt?

81"

How long is the quilt?

89"

Quilt's condition:

Excellent/like new

Describe the quilt's layout:

Block pattern

Arrangement of quilt blocks:

Straight

Fiber types used to make the quilt top:

Cotton or polyester blend

Piecing techniques used to make the quilt top:

Machine Piecing

Materials used to make the back:

Cotton or polyester blend

Number of pieces of fabric in the quilt back:

2

What kind of filling is used in the quilt?

Polyester

How are the layers held together?

Hand quilting

Number of quilting stitches per inch, place 1:

5

Number of quilting stitches per inch, place 2:

5

Quilting designs used, overall motifs:

Grid/crosshatch

Where did the maker find their pattern?

Original to maker

Exhibitions where this quilt was displayed:

To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions, SITES; August 1, 1997-December 30, 1997, George Gustav Heye Center in National Museum of the American Indian, New York, NY; April 19-October 18, 1998, MSU Museum, East Lansing, MI; March 13-June 6, 1999, Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, MA; July 3rd-September 26th, 1999, The Cleveland Museum of Natural History , Cleveland, OH; October 23, 1999-January 16, 2000, Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, MT; February 12-May 7, 2000, Bishop Museum-The State Museum of Natural and Cultural History , Honolulu, Honolulu, HI; June 3-August 27, 2000, Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, WA; September 23-December 31, 2000, Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NM; January 13-April 8, 2001, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ.

Related items such as diaries, obituaries, wills, household inventories, or pictures of the quiltmaker:

To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions (1997), page 39.

Source of the information on this quilt:

Museum employee

Ownership of this quilt is:

Public- Michigan State University Museum

Quilt owner's name:

Michigan State University Museum

Quilt owner's city:

East Lansing

Quilt owner's county:

Ingham

Quilt owner's state:

Michigan (MI)

How was this quilt acquired?

Purchase

Tell the story of how the quilt was obtained:

12/11/1995, Charlie Grinnell

Access and copyright information:

Restricted

How did the quiltmaker participate in the creation of the quilt?

Made entire quilt

If the source helped design the quilt, describe their input:

Designed the pattern

Copyright holder:

Michigan State University Museum