“Oh Say, Can You See: America and Its Birth” (2022) by Jess Hill has been accessioned into the John Hay Library’s permanent collections and is on display in the grand staircase. Since I arrived at Brown, the Simmons Center has been one of the Hay Library’s closest partners. It is an honor to display this quilt, which is so closely tied to the history of the Simmons Center and exemplifies the critical and transformative work that the Center catalyzes. The quilt is a centerpiece of the redesigned installation in the grand staircase, which now displays images from each of the areas of collecting distinction for the Hay as well as original art such as this quilt. 

I saw this quilt at the opening of the Simmons Center’s 10th anniversary exhibition, Racial Slavery Marronage & Freedom. It was a cold December day, dark in the way of early winter. The quilt was arresting in its burst of color and its scale. As I stood before it, the layers of texture and design spoke to me. The careful choices of fabric — such as the map pattern — hinted to me of the layers of archival documents that the Hay Library preserves so that scholars and artists can create new knowledge, textual and visual. On a personal level, I was touched by the artistry of the quilt. My mother was a textile artist, and I grew up surrounded by thread and fabric. Quilts were the first windows I had into the world and were my original language for storytelling and meaning-making.