African Textiles Workshop: The Peace Quilt Project

Mr. Willis "Bing" Davis posing in front of his artwork

News Release Date: September 20, 2016

Contact: Dr. Joy Kinard, 937-352-6757

The park is excited to announce we will host an interactive new workshop.  African Textiles: The Peace Quilt Project workshop will be presented at the park on October 29, 2016 and November 11, 2016 (Veteran's Day). The event will be held from 10:00 a.m. to noon at 1120 US HWY 42 Wilberforce, Ohio.  The facilitator will be the internationally renowned artist Mr. Willis "Bing" Davis.  This free workshop was designed to provide participants an opportunity to gain a unique perspective on traditional African art and culture's influence on contemporary African American life, and culture past and present.  Willis "Bing" Davis' record as an artist and a curator is equally illustrious; including exhibitions at the Studio Museum of Harlem, American Craft Museum, Renwick Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, the Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Museum, National Museum of Art of Senegal West Africa, United States Embassy Accra, Ghana and Museum fur Angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts, Frankfurt, Germany.)

His art can be found in public and private collections in the United States of America, England, China, Japan, France, Australia, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia, and Gabon on the Continent of Africa.  He attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, graduating in 1959.  He also received his Master of Education degree in 1967 from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.  The workshop participants should be between the ages of 17 years old and up.  Attendees will learn more about selected African textiles traditions that are gaining popularity in African American communities in Dayton, the U.S.A. and the world. 

Charles Young served in Haiti and Liberia, with the U.S. Army.  He loved and admired African Art and exhibited it in his Wilberforce, Ohio home.  This program is part of an ongoing series of public programs offered at the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument to promote public understanding of history and of the special places that have been included in the national park system.  For further information, call [phone]. Space is limited, please RSVP by emailing or calling the park.