FROM THE SILVER NEEDLE: THE LEGACY OF ELIZABETH TALFORD SCOTT, MICA MADES MOVING IMAGE MEDIA COLLECTION. OSIRIS PRODUCTIONS © 1990
“We made everything that could be made by hand- like food, shoes, and clothes. My grandfather was a shoemaker. My grandmother was [also a shoemaker]. She crocheted tops of shoes, and she crocheted shoes. We didn’t have to buy anything. We would go to the fields and pick the leftovers and all the wool that would be left from the shearing of the sheep and the goats.”
“These are all my designs. Just Imagination. I sat sometimes and on a piece of paper I sketch something and think about it. I lay it on the floor, and I study it. And then I’ll get material and decide to do it.”
ON ROCKS
“Rocks give you strength. Rocks are luck. And the first thing we had on earth after the water was moved is a rock. And that rock is still standing, and it’s called the Rock of Gibraltar. And that rock is holding this world together. If something happens to the rock of Gibraltar we are gone forever. So, we were taught that rocks were strength, prayer, and it was faith for you.”
“This design is usually for people who have faith. You gotta have something to have faith in. You take a piece of material and just cut it out and sew it up into a small round piece. Put it on a piece of material and just lay it down and study it. I could have made an apple or a plum, or an egg out of it. I could have shaped it that way, but I liked the base. I liked this splatter stuff and I liked these for like an object, like a flower- It could be a miss. It could be anything around this star flower. I could make a wall hanging out of it or I could make a pillow. Or I could add onto it with more strips this size and a make a quilt. “
MARYLAND PUBLIC TELEVISION © 1998 WITH RHEA FEIKIN
“I was 9 [when I started quilting]. Later when you got older you had to make your own quilts. You had your own family, you see. My mother was there. You didn’t make any mistakes. If you did you pulled it out and started over again, the thread, and start over again.”
“It wasn’t so much art in those parts ‘cause we were plantation people- Cotton people, they say. They weren’t into designing and selling quilts. Blankets was scarce and they was selling wool then, and where we lived was only cotton, and I was-we were-growing up. Over the years we understood more about quilting and piecing quilts. Back when I was coming up, we said quilt, but now I use the word from the web: I’m an artist.”
“This was Joyce’s baby quilt. Yes, we used to lay Joyce on that and she would kick. She was a little plump something, but she would fit, and she wouldn’t roll off.”
“Twinkle Twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are, up above the world so high – like a diamond in the sky. And we would say that and we would go outside and they would be all around.”
WJZ CHANNEL 13 © WJZ CBS NEWS BALTIMORE
“When I was a child, we had a rock at every door. Understand? It was for luck. And we had a horseshoe over the door. And had a shotgun under the horseshoe.”
“When I was a child, these are the stitches my parents made. This was the work that we did, my parents did. It was one way of surviving during the winter because we were farming people. We didn’t have much work to do during the winter ‘cause we picked cotton- we were in the cotton fields. My father was a sharecropper and that’s where I get the word, Sharecroppers daughter. It was a lot of us. And in the winter we made quilts. My mother made them year round, and we had to learn to make small stitches because when you made small stitches, the quilt held up better and you could use it on each side.”
From Joyce J. Scott about her mother
"My parents ate shit so I could eat sugar."
"My mother is my muse."
“When people tell me I’m a good-looking woman, I say ‘Thank you very much, but you are not looking at me, you’re looking at my parents.'“
