NedRa Bonds

Nedra "NedRa" Bonds (born 1948) is an American quilter, activist, and retired teacher, born and raised in the historic Quindaro neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. Bonds creates quilts and mixed media fiber dolls using fabric, beads, and symbolism to explore issues dealing with human rights, race, women, politics, and the environment. She is best known for her Quindaro Quilt, a quilt measuring , detailing the important history of the Quindaro neighborhood and its role as part of the National Underground Railroad System of Historic Trails. As a community activist and educator, Bonds advocates for legislation, taught workshops locally and internationally, and attended the Earth Summit Conference on Environment and Development of the United Nations as a delegate in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Bonds is a practicing artist and retired teacher in Kansas City, Kansas. Her recent projects include her Common Threads quilt, commissioned by the Kansas City Chiefs for their Arrowhead Arts Collection, the Wak’ó Mujeres Phụ nữ Women Mural collaboration, sponsored by the Charlotte Street Foundation's Rocket Grant Program, in Lawrence, Kansas, and her recent cancer project. Bonds was appointed to the Kansas Arts Commission by Kansas Governor Joan Finney in 1992. Her father, William Patton, worked as a police captain. Bonds was taught quilting at the age of six, saying "So I learned to make 10 stitches to the first joint in my finger, and if I didn’t do 10 then I had to take them out and do them over again."

Bonds received her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Kansas in American Studies and her Master of Science at Kansas State University in Urban Education.

As a young adult, Bonds gave up quilting to pursue more of an activist role through community engagement; "As soon as I could, I gave up quilting to raise hell in all sorts of ways that were meaningful for me at the time. Letter-writing, sit-ins, you name it. It was the 1960s and the civil rights movement." Bonds attended city council meetings almost every two weeks for eight years. At these meetings, she would get out her quilt and for the five minutes she was allotted used it as a backdrop to illustrate what a "...travesty it was to throw all that away in the name of a landfill". A direct inspiration for Dawson came from stories of her grandmother, Elizabeth Thompson, who escaped slavery to Old Quindaro and was eventually buried in the Old Quindaro Cemetery. Bonds reflected on If Da Dirt Could Talk / The Hero Quilt Project, introducing artist, organizer, and activist Michael Toombs as a "living example" of an everyday hero.

Social justice and community involvement

In 2010, Bonds received the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City's Inspiration Grant, which she used to create a quilt celebrating the UMKC Women’s Center's 40th anniversary, as part of the exhibition Her Art: Who does She think She is, which ran from April 1 through May 13, 2011. Her Women's Equity Quilt, a collaborative effort where Kansas City and UMKC community members each made one square for a larger quilt, has been recognized nationally by both the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the University of Michigan as an "outstanding community effort in addressing social justice". Arusha, Tanzania, and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In 2008, she participated in an American Studies Association conference in Istanbul, Turkey. Bonds was recently invited to participate in an exchange in Cuba, with other textile artists. both in Lawrence, Kansas. An illustration of Bonds was included in a mural titled Kansas Women Work for Justice in Topeka, Kansas.

Other works

Bonds takes symbolism from contemporary political and social issues and cuts it up, pastes it down, and stitches it back together with fabric and beads. She said, "Sometimes I work straight through and create a quilt in a couple of days. At the other extreme, I have one that took two years. I created these little beaded masks that were an inch square, and after I'd created about 40 of them I decided to put them all together into a face." That quilt is called A Kiss from the Ancestors—it incorporates elaborate beaded silhouettes of the faces of a relative and child, with various music symbols, like drums, brass instruments, and the treble clef, which reference Kansas City's important role in the history of Jazz.

While going through treatment for breast cancer, Bonds has been creating a series of works around her struggle with cancer. She hopes to have these works come together in an exhibition at a hospital, to support those going through treatment and start conversations.

A recent quote from Bonds summarizes her parallel practices of quilting and activism; "I'm 68 but still keep blank placards and marker pens in the back of my car in case I need to stop and picket somebody. I've got a sewing machine in there too, because I've found you never quite know when a situation might arise in which one is required. I call this 'being ready'." 2011 New England Quilt Museum, Lowell MA 2011 Wonder Women: SHEroes, Freedom Fighters, & Women Who Kick Butt! as part of HerArt, Kansas City MO 2011 The Light in the Other Room: First Light, Changing Gallery, American Jazz Museum, Kansas City MO 2012 Friends, Country Club Christian Church, Kansas City MO 2012 Ella: 1st Lady of Song, American Jazz Museum, Kansas City MO 2013 Bruce Watkins Cultural Center, Kansas City MO 2013 Fractured Fabrics, Overland Park KS 2014 Her Art Project: WONDER WOMEN: SHEroes, Freedom Fighters, & Women Who Kick Butt!, Leedy-Voulkos Arts Center, Kansas City MO 2014 Brown V Board of Education 60th Anniversary, Mulvane Arts Center, Topeka KS 2018 And Still We Rise: Race, Culture, and Visual Conversations, Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence KS

Collections Her work is included in the American Jazz Museum, the Spencer Museum of Art, Sprint, H&R Block, Saint Luke's Women's Center, and Arrowhead Arts Collections.

Bonds has an artist file located in the Spencer Art Reference Library through their Artists' File Initiative at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Commissions and workshops 2011 Soft Sculpture, National Museum of Toys and Miniatures, Kansas City MO 2012 Art Smart Series, Briarwood Elementary School, Overland Park KS 2011 Quilt Camp UMKC, Kansas City MO 2013 The Doll as Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City MO 2013 Connecting Threads, Kansas City Chiefs Football Club, Kansas City MO 2013 Workshop series Landon Center on Aging/KU Med, Kansas City KS 2017 Juneteenth Celebration talk, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City MO 2020 Champions for Health Youth Summit, collaborative work with students from Kansas and Missouri, Heroes (We can make a difference), Kansas City, Missouri