Author, art historian, curator, quilter, aerospace engineer
Known for
Quilting
Carolyn L. Mazloomi (néeCarolyn Louise Stewart;[1] born August 22, 1948)[1] is an American curator, quilter, author, art historian, and aerospace engineer. She is a strong advocate for presenting and documenting African-American-made quilts. Her own quilts are designed to tell complex stories around African-American heritage and contemporary experiences.[2]
In the early 1970s, she encountered an Appalachian quilt at a market in Dallas that began her passion for quilting. She continued her quilting experiments while earning her PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering in 1984.[3]
Mazloomi has since retired from her job as an aerospace engineer and Federal Aviation Administration crash site investigator. She is married to Iranian engineer Rezvan Mazloomi, and together the family lives in Ohio.[4]
Women of Color Quilters Network
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 Women of Color Quilters Network (WOCQN)[5] in 1986,[6] 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.
Works authored on quilting
Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts (1998). ISBN978-0609600917
Threads of Faith: Recent Works from the Women of Color Quilters Network (2004). ISBN978-1585167739
Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition (2007). ISBN978-0979267505
Quilting African American Women's History Our Challenges, Creativity and Champions (2008). ISBN978-0979267512
The Journey of Hope in America: Quilts Celebrating President Barack Obama (2009). ISBN978-0760339350
^Women designers in the USA, 1900–2000 : diversity and difference : Jacqueline M. Atkins [and others]. Kirkham, Pat., Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2000. ISBN9780300087345. OCLC45486311.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^Laitman, Nanette (September 30, 2002). "Oral history interview with Carolyn Mazloomi". Smithsonian Archives of American Art Oral History Program. Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
^Curnutte, Mark (February 1, 2014). "The heart of a lion". The Enquirer. Retrieved October 11, 2022.
^Women designers in the USA, 1900–2000 : diversity and difference : Jacqueline M. Atkins [and others]. Kirkham, Pat., Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2000. ISBN9780300087345. OCLC45486311.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)