Cloth Returns to Manchester: Penn Center Artist in Residence Leads Gullah Rag Quilt Project Linking St. Helena Island to England's Cotton Capital
ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C. — Two hundred years ago, cotton grown and picked by enslaved people on the Sea Islands was shipped across the Atlantic to feed the mills of Manchester, England. This weekend, cloth will make that trip again. This time it will carry the hands, stories and creativity of the Gullah Geechee community.
Gullah Rag quilter and fiber artist Torreah "Cookie" Washington, Historic Penn Center's 2026 Artist in Residence, invites the public to a two-day community quilting program on Sept. 26 and 27 at Penn Center. Participants will work with Washington to make 20 Gullah Rag quilt squares. A community group in Manchester will make 10 more. The 30 squares will be joined into one large quilt and shown in Manchester in March 2027 as part of an exhibition produced by the Science and Industry Museum in partnership with the Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme.
Penn Center's Artist in Residence
The residency is part of Culture and Community at the Penn Center National Historic Landmark District, a partnership between Penn Center and the University of Georgia's Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, funded by the Mellon Foundation. It is named for Thomas "Sam" Doyle (1906-1985), a self-taught St. Helena Island painter and Penn School alumnus. His paintings of island life and Civil Rights history are now held by the Smithsonian, the High Museum of Art and the American Folk Art Museum. Residents are chosen for work rooted in Gullah Geechee culture that engages Sea Island communities directly. Past residents include Grammy-nominated tenor Victor Ryan Robertson (2025), interdisciplinary artist Amiri Geuka Farris (2023-2024), and multimedia artists TamikaGalanis and Anina Major (2022).
Washington is a fourth-generation needleworker from Goose Creek, S.C. She has taught at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, curated the African American Fiber Arts Exhibition for more than 20 years, and founded the Beautility movement, which treats upcycling as both art and a way of life. Her work is in museum collections and has appeared on PBS and in The Saturday Evening Post.
"Gullah Rag Quilting is a language of memory, an act of honoring lives and creativity rarely recorded but deeply felt," Washington said.
A Tradition of Transformation
Gullah Rag quilting is a no-sew Lowcountry tradition developed by enslaved Africans. Scraps of cloth that might otherwise be thrown away become something useful, beautiful and lasting. In this project, the quilt carries history, memory and community, and it builds a new relationship between two places tied together by slavery and the global textile industry. Manchester participants will also receive South Carolina indigo-dyed fabric made by artist Arianne King Comer, adding another living South Carolina tradition to the quilt.
The project is part of the Scott Trust's 10-year Legacies of Enslavement programme. The programme works to deepen understanding of slavery's role in the United Kingdom's economic development and its lasting effects, with a focus on Manchester. It also supports repair in descendant communities in Jamaica and the southeastern United States.