about the artist
Mama Carla Wiley learned storytelling, quilting and arts as a four-year-old sitting under her great-grandmother and grandmother’s quilt frame. A product of a Geechee family who worked in the North Carolinian fabric mills and raised their own produce, Mama Carla learned to respect and preserve the traditions she learned.
Among her many titles, Mama Carla is a fiber artist/quilt instructor/historian, literacy advocate, educator, writer, storyteller/oral historian, and female rites of passage facilitator.
Mama Carla is co-founder of the cultural arts group – Progeny’s Legacy Jamaa. Her group designs and facilitates workshops about the history of culinary arts, such as the role of tea, bread and herbs; fiber arts, including needle work, clothes designed; and oral traditions, stories and music in African and African American history.
Working with institutions as diverse as Aetna, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Civil War Museum, The African American Museum and The Free Library of Philadelphia, Carla has created programs that use stories to bridge the gap between cultures and peoples.
Mama Carla is a resident of the Olney neighborhood.
Learn how Mama Carla Wiley will capture the history and culture of Olney business district through the collection of oral history and the creation of a 72”x72” quilt.
Listen to Mama Carla Wiley share a story about how a community comes together and takes care of one another during hard times.
Mama Carla Wiley talks about quilting.
Event & Activity Dates for Mama carla wiley
notes from the field
Click here to go to Talking Cloth Quilt and see updates on the project. Watch oral history interviews conducted by Mama Carla with various business owners and organizational leaders from the business corridor.
