Art teachers often draw on their personal experiences when planning. The author of this article had spent time admiring the quilting skills of the Amish and Mennonite people around Lancaster and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. She had also steeped herself in the history of the Civil War. These experiences steered her towards an art problem that involved quilting. A lover of SchoolArts centerfolds, she remembered an art reproduction that she had tucked away in a folder. The centerfold was a pictorial quilt by the African-American artist, Harriet Powers (SchoolArts, January 2001). Upon viewing this centerfold, she knew she had a lesson: creating a paper quilt block based on the memory of a special celebration. Harriet Powers would be the focus. In studying, students would reflect on her life as a slave and a survivor of the Civil War. The block would be influenced by her style: bold simple shapes that would be arranged to tell a story. In this lesson students would have the opportunity to learn that the visual arts have both a history and specific relationship to various cultures.