This project originated when Prof. Glady-Marie Fry visited the offices of the Visual Press, an innovative if short-lived program sponsored by the Graduate College of the University of Maryland College Park. Dr. Fry talked about her research on Harriett Powers and suggested that the artist might be an interesting subject for a documentary program. After learning a little more about Powers, William Gilcher, then a writer/producer for the Visual Press, became interested in the subject and agreed to explore the possibilities. Over the next few years, it grew to be an obsession.

At the time, the Visual Press had an agreement with the Smithsonian Institution Press to jointly develop video and television projects with scholarly significance. Harriett Powers - one of whose quilt masterpieces was owned by the Smithsonian - seemed a perfect choice.

With support from the Smithsonian and the University, two symposia were organized with the producers and consultants - one in September 1990 at the Smithsonian, and a second in April 1991 at the University of Maryland. Subsequently, thanks to support from the Georgia Council on the Humanities and the Maryland Humanities Council, the team visited Athens, Georgia and conducted extensive research, with the help of local historians and in cooperation with Dr. James Washington, pastor of New Grove Baptist Church, where Harriett Powers’ son, Rev. A. C. “Lum” Powers had once been First Clerk. Dramatist Grace Cavalieri was part of the project from the beginning. Director Charles Burnett also agreed to be part of the production team.

Several scripts for documentary and feature film projects resulted from the research, although they were never produced due to lack of funding:

1. 1.Grace Cavalieri and William Gilcher wrote a screenplay in 1991 called Mrs. Powers and Miss Smith, later re-titled and revised in 1998 as Amid the Seven Stars.
   

2. 2.Continuing with the subject, Grace Cavalieri completed a play entitled Quilting the Sun, which was performed at the Smithsonian in March 2003 and in Greenville, SC in February 2007.
   

3. 3.A script for a one-hour documentary, Anything for Wisement: The World of Harriet Powers, was written by William Gilcher in 1996.
   

Another wonderful result of the project was that a number of descendants of Harriett and Armsted Powers have become aware of their ancestor’s work. This is largely thanks to the informal network that has existed since the early 1990s at New Grove Baptist Church, Winterville, Georgia. One branch of the family, living in Springfield, Massachusetts, came to Boston to see the Museum’s quilt for the first time in February 1996. Photographer and quilt historian Roland Freeman documented this special event. The results were published in his 1996 book, A Communion of the Spirits: African-American Quilters, Preservers, and Their Stories. The same day, another relative, Joan “Halimah” Brooks, created a five-minute piece for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts and NBC affiliate WWLP-22.

Due to the press of other commitments, William Gilcher had to put aside the Harriett Powers projects starting in 1997. Now (June 2011), with more time available, he is eager to take up the production again. The new scholarship of Kyra E. Hicks and  Catherine Holmes has opened many new avenues of inquiry which will enrichen the project.