Crazy Quilt - Artist Book by Maureen Cummins (page 2)

Detail from Crazy Quilt, (collector's Art Book)

Crazy Quilt (1999) Crazy Quilt assembles the experiences of women institutionalized for insanity since the Victorian era. Excerpts from accounts written by celebrated figures such as Charlotte Perkins-Gilman, Frances Farmer, and Kate Millett are presented alongside those written by women unknown to history. In the book, the quilt form is used as both object and symbol: pages open, unfold, and refold in the manner of a quilt, and their colorful decorative patterns draw the viewer into the text, which resembles embroidery. However, the brutal content of these excerpts contradicts precisely those values embodied in traditional motifs. In one entry, written by Elizabeth Packard, the reader is informed that women in Victorian asylums were forced to sew as a form of manual labor, while the "crazy quilt" style, in which useless and unwanted scraps of fabric were pieced together, provides a commentary on the position of marginalized women in our society.