About the Artist

Graham, North Carolina

Jerome Bias is a furniture maker and cultural heritage practitioner, specializing in the reproduction of early Southern furniture using period techniques. He has been making furniture since 2000. 

As the hearth cook with the Slave Dwelling Project during on-site programs, he learned to ask complicated questions, like: What were the skill sets of enslaved tradespeople? How did they craft lives for themselves and their families while enslaved? 

Bias currently makes reproductions of furniture from places where his family was enslaved. He is exploring the question: How did his ancestors handle the trauma of enslavement and yet maintain the ability to have hope and love? 

Website: JeromeBias.MyPortfolio.com
Social Media: @JeromeFBias

Artist Statement 

Hope and Love. How do we see the ancestors? It is easy to see them through a lens of pain and suffering. In this project I look at them through a lens of hope and love. I sit in amazement at the courage it took for a mother to love her daughter knowing that if the crops failed, her baby girl could be sold to pay a debt. In this project, “What does that love look like?”  I ask the question, what kind of generational trauma comes out of that experience? 

We don’t know the names of many of the ancestors, and we have very few of their stories. But from research we know that we have artifacts that were witnesses to their lives. They were there while they lived their lives. They were the items that they used every day. They were the items that they bought to express themselves. They were the items that they bought to make life possible. 

As a people forged in the bitter fire of American slavery, what does hope and love look like? Is it the resplendent coconut cake that was made by an auntie and would have graced this hunt board? Is it the oversize tree nails that hold the hunt board together while also fracturing the frame? What do you keep and pass on to the next generation?  What do you find a new healthier version of?  These are the questions that I am exploring through the building of the Georgia hunt board.

About the Artist

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan/Springfield, Ohio

Joey Quiñones is a sculptor working primarily with fiber and ceramics. They were selected as an Emerging Artist of 2020 by Ceramics Monthly and a Manifest Gallery Annual Prize Finalist, and they received an Honorable Mention for the James Renwick Alliance Chrysalis Award. Their work has been shown at venues such as the Akron Art Museum, the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, and the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. They have a master of fine arts degree in Studio Art from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa. They are currently the Artist-in-Residence, Head of Fiber at Cranbrook Academy of Art.  

Website: JoeyQuinones.com
Social Media: @JQuinones_Art

Artist Statement

As an artist, I study decorative domestic items from the era of Enlightenment. I came to Winterthur because of its large collection of ceramics, textiles, paintings, and furniture. The collection of decorative objects tells us as a society who and what we value, and who and what we don’t. When thinking about the United States, we often leave out the history of Spain’s colonization in the New World, and how this presence impacted the African and indigenous populations that all came together in this place. For my project, I created items that would have never existed in the early founding of the U.S. and the Americas (Caribbean included) but more accurately depict the racial and gender dynamics of the period. It influences us still today. With this exhibit, I aim to inspire a dialogue on race, colonization, and the transatlantic slave trade. 

Winterthur’s collection of furniture and tools from noted shops like that of the Dominy family from East Hampton, New York, and Alexander Forbes of Cleveland, Ohio, provides inspiration and an extensive study collection for contemporary furniture and tool makers, like the women and nonbinary makers featured here. This new work also prompts us to ask questions about makers of the past who may have gone unrecognized due to their identity or circumstances. To learn more about the Dominy family and to see their wood and watch shops, visit the Dominy Gallery, also on the second floor of the Galleries.  

The new tools shown here are made by makers associated with The Chairmaker’s Toolbox.  

“Our mission is to address the barriers to education and community to build the future of green woodworking. Following three hundred years of restricted access, we believe that the continued relevance of hand tool woodworking relies on the authentic participation of historically excluded makers. The Chairmaker’s Toolbox provides free tools, education, and mentorship for BIPOC, GNC, and female students hoping to build chairs and established toolmakers seeking to build sustainable businesses. In support of the project, we have partnered with Winterthur, The Furniture Society, and chairmakers across the country. We have offered classes as Lost Art Press, A Workshop of Our Own, The School of Woodwork, Port Townsend School of Woodworking, Austin School of Furniture and Design, and Fireweed Woodshop.”