It may seem ironic that the story of America’s Tapestry began 4,000 miles away. But such is our globally intertwined world.
In 2023, Stefan Romero, a costume designer by trade and training, was on a work assignment in the U.K., where he encountered "The Great Tapestry of Scotland." Its 160 panels, created by 1,000 volunteers to honor the country’s history “from Pangaea to present day,” made him wonder if something like that could be created for America’s 250th birthday.
Some 2,600 volunteer hours later, the answer was “Yes!”
Nearly 2,000 embroiderers, ages 3 to 98, have created 13, 40- by 50-inch panels under the auspices of America’s Tapestry, Romero’s nascent nationwide fiber arts and historical initiative.
The exhibition debuted Friday in Williamsburg, the epicenter of the Revolution, where it will occupy two chambers in Muscarelle Museum of Art's second-floor Gallery 7. Each embroidered, stretched and framed panel will be accompanied by didactic wall text. Over the course of the next three years, the show will travel to all 13 states.
The project is managed through the nonprofit partner institution, Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania. Major support has been provided by the Coby Foundation and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, while Yarn Tree, based in Iowa, donated 32-count Belfast linen for the panels, and Wichelt Imports in Wisconsin donated all the DMC brand cotton embroidery floss.
But before the first needle was threaded, Romero began researching institutions and potential volunteer pools. Many confirmations and some rejections later, the Embroiderers’ Guild of America took the lead while historical collaborators ran the gamut from the N.C. Department for Natural and Cultural Resources to the Coastal Heritage Society of Savannah.
In Virginia, Catherine Theron, a 40-year member and two-time president of the Williamsburg Rose and Thistle EGA, stepped up as state director alongside the Town of Wytheville Museums and William & Mary as the Commonwealth’s two historical partners.
Wytheville, in the western part of the state, plays a central role because Virginia’s panel pays tribute to the lead mines of Wythe County, which were integral to the production of musket balls for the Continental Army. The panel was designed by Rachel Genito in response to Romero’s open call to arts universities for contemporary illustrations of historic events; the panel tells what Muscarelle director, David Brashear, describes as “a story that isn’t maybe always part of the conversation.”
Dominating the panel is a portrait of a young, strong and proud man named Aberdeen with a pickaxe slung over his shoulder. He was one of the enslaved African men who worked in the mines alongside Welsh miners, who were hired and brought to the colony. Other labor was provided by convicts who were serving out their sentences.
Aberdeen, who is surrounded by flowering dogwood, Virginia’s state tree, defied his Loyalist master’s orders to support the British. He instead volunteered to enlist with the Continentals. However, he labored far from the front lines for seven years, eventually earning his freedom in 1783 when he petitioned the House of Delegates by explaining his service to the Patriots.
Describing this project as a powerful “intersection of art and history,” Brashear is grateful for the broad-based engagement and collective enterprise that has made the Muscarelle central.
Julie Tucker, Muscarelle marketing and events manager, seconds that with gratitude for the institution’s volunteers, describing how exciting it was to watch the tapestry come together and how enjoyable it was to get to know the volunteers over the course of the last year.
Originally from New England, Theron led 100-plus people who put in some 1,500 hours. She has been a designer and teacher of counted thread embroidery for decades, publishing her designs under the name Theron Traditions and co-founding The Gentle Art overdyed thread company in New Albany, Ohio.
In Virginia, volunteers — women and some men — came from primarily Williamsburg, Charlottesville, Fredericksburg, Richmond and Virginia Beach.
In Williamsburg, some of the volunteers were William & Mary students and administrative staff, Muscarelle docents and master gardeners who stitch. Recruitment happened through the guild as well as Facebook, and Theron welcomed them all, enjoying seasoned pros as well as novices.
In the spirit of diversity, Romero said, no stitching guide was provided so that volunteers were able to “tap into what really ticks.”
The Commonwealth’s panel is a hybrid of hand embroidery, appliqué and hand painting. The cartoon or full-size illustration served as a master pattern and message board, with volunteers leaving each other notes about numbers and colors of strands. Some areas used random pattern darning, a counted thread technique that relies on parallel rows of running stitches of varying lengths, which Theron described as good for people with no experience or compromised eyesight. In the “tons of grass,” overdyed thread—floss that has been dyed with multiple colors or shades—prevented the stitchers from having to change colors.
A few key volunteers include Carrie Eddy (Richmond), who appliqued Aberdeen’s clothing; Judy Jeroy (Virginia Beach), who, along with Theron, painted the dirt; Catherine Jordan (Richmond); Melody McNath (Williamsburg), who combined Japanese silk embroidery and ecclesiastical shading for Aberdeen’s skin; and Cindy Portell. Observing that every country has its own tradition of embroidery and needlework, she said that the United States enjoys many different traditions because our ancestors come from so many different places.
Recalling the needlework resurgence after America’s bicentennial, Theron hopes this project will spark an American Revolution of a different kind, one that arms a diverse populace with needles and thread.
The exhibition runs through Sept. 26, Muscarelle Museum, William & Mary, 611 Jamestown Road, Williamsburg, muscarelle.wm.edu
Visit AmericasTapestry.com for more information on each state’s panel, including videos.
