Quilt art
Quilt art, sometimes known as art quilting, mixed media art quilts or fiber art quilts,
Early US and British contributors to the field
Because of feminism and the new craft movements of the 1960s and 1970s, quilting techniques, traditionally used by women, became prominent in the making of fine arts. Dr. Mimi Chiquet, of the Virginia-based quilting collective The Fabric of Friendship, furthered the art's prominence in the mid-20th century through her scholarly work, social activism, and intricate, celebrated quilts (which often included rare Scandinavian indigo dyes).[4] The transition from traditional quilting through art quilts to quilted art was rapid; many of the most important advances in the field came in the 1970s and 1980s.
Jean Ray Laury (1928–2011) is cited by Robert Shaw as the "most prominent and influential of [the] early modern [American] quiltmakers." Laury was an "academically trained artist and designer who encouraged women to create their own new designs based on their own experiences, surroundings and ideas rather than traditional patterns."[5] Laury wrote, "There are no rules in stitchery – no single 'right' way of working."[6]
Pauline Burbidge, a British artist, first saw old quilts in Portobello Road in London and 30 years later is still working in the medium. (McMorris p. 48)
Radka Donnell (1928–2013), as a former painter, used her training in her quilted works. Donnell was a feminist who eschewed the "art scene" in order to explore quilts as liberating creativity for women. As recently as 1996 she was still teaching in the field with a course on the history, theory, and techniques of quilting at Simmons College and Westfield State College in Massachusetts.[7]
Charles and Rubynelle Counts, after studying at Berea College and elsewhere, started a crafts center. Charles Counts designed tops which were then quilted by local artisans. Rising Fawn, the crafts center, continued to produce quilts into the mid-1970s; the designs are little known today but are still distinctive. (Shaw, p. 49–50)
Joan Lintault produced original textile and quilted art before quilting or quilt art became a national pastime. She and Therese May, as well as the Counts, had work that was first published by Jean Ray Laury in Quilts and Coverlets: A Contemporary Approach, 1970. While Lintault often makes openwork tops, May is known for her embellished and painted quilts, using private symbols and figures.[8]
Beth Gutcheon and Michael James were quilting instructors, beginning a trend which still allows quilting artists to earn income from a pursuit close to their art. Gutcheon published The Perfect Patchwork Primer in 1973. James' book, The Quiltmaker's Handbook: a Guide to Design and Construction (1978) was more technical. These two books are often cited as the place where contemporary quilt artists began. James' follow-up book, published in 1981 (The Second Quiltmaker's Handbook: Creative Approaches to Contemporary Quilt Design), showed his work as well as photos and analyses of art by Nancy Halpern, Beth Gutcheon, Radka Donnell, Nancy Crow, Francoise Barnes, and Katie Pasquini, among others. (Shaw, p. 54)
By 2010 Gutcheon had established herself as a successful novelist based in New York City. James currently serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Textiles, Merchandising & Fashion Design at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the academic home of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, located in Quilt House.
James teaches courses in textile design and quilt studies, and continues his studio practice focused on non-traditional quilts incorporating digitally developed and digitally printed fabrics.
Nancy Crow, another influential teacher and writer of books, was instrumental in freeing quilting artists from certain preconceptions about rules. Her 1995 exhibit, Improvisational Quilts, was the first solo exhibition of art quilts done by the Renwick Gallery. (Shaw, p. 66)
Two other quilt artists, Molly Upton (1953–1977) and Susan Hoffman, exhibited with Radka Donnell in 1975 at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University. Also in 1975, Upton and Hoffman exhibited at the Kornblee Gallery on 57th Street in New York City. In doing so, they brought quilt art to the forefront as comparable to other forms of contemporary art. According to Robert Shaw, "Where other quilters were moving away from the traditional quilt one step at a time, seeing how far they could push the quilt format while still remaining connected to historical precedent, Hoffman and Upton largely ignored the rules and the assumed limitations of traditional quilting and simply leapt forward." (Shaw, p. 60)
Other quilt artists working in the 1970s include Terrie Hancock Mangat, Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade, Nancy Clearwater Herman, Jan Myers-Newbury, Pamela Studstill, Joan Schultz, Yvonne Porcella, Ruth McDowell, Katherine Westphal and Rise Nagin. (McMorris, Shaw)
The
Important early exhibits in the U.S.
Although many quilts made and displayed prior to the 1970s can now be defined as art, the form was most importantly recognized as legitimate art in the 1971
The presentation of pieced quilts, with their emphasis on color and geometric forms, fit perfectly into the art modes of the time. The abstract expressionists, like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, who used large swaths of color on canvas, had had their moment in the 1950s. They were followed in the 1960s by such hard edge abstractionists as Frank Stella. Thus the public had already been prepared for highly colored abstract art work; the pieced quilts in the Whitney exhibit fit into the current art scene. The Whitney's pieced art exhibit toured the country and was followed by a quilt craze, which reached a culmination in the Bicentennial events of 1976. Many quilts were made for that event and a revival of interest in quilting techniques and materials started giving artists expanded work potential. In addition the feminist movement of the late 60s and 70s produced a new interest in women who worked in the arts as well as formerly neglected women's work that could now be seen as art. Quilts, exhibited in galleries and museums, fit into the country's cultural and social concerns.
Other exhibits in the 1970s presented the "new type of quilt, one markedly different from its tradition-inspired counterparts."[10] "The Art Quilt" was a traveling exhibit, sponsored by the Art Museum Association of America, debuting at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery on October 1, 1986. Two other exhibits were "The New American Quilt" at The Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York City in 1976 and "Quilt National" in 1979, the first of the still existing biennial exhibits spotlighting contemporary, generally original, designs. It too is a traveling exhibit.[11]
Other important exhibits of the 1970s include "Bed and Board",
Art quilts are now part of collections in museums such as the:
- New England Quilt Museum, Lowell, Massachusetts
- Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York
- Missoula Museum of the Arts, Missoula, Montana
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
- High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
- Muse ArtColle, Sergines, France
- Museum of the State of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
- Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
- International Quilt Study Center & Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
Quilt art exhibit installation view, International Quilt Study Center & Museum, University of Nebraska - Lincoln - Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin
- The Mint Museum of Craft & Design, Charlotte, North Carolina
- The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey
- Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, Nebraska
- The Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, Golden, Colorado
- The Brigham City Museum of Art & History, Brigham City, Utah
- The Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts
- The Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
- National Quilt Museum, Paducah, Kentucky
- David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University Muncie, Indiana
- Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland
Quilted art outside the U.S. has flourished in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and possibly elsewhere. More information about the art in these countries needs added to this site.
Professional organizations
The professional organization for quilt artists in the U.S. and elsewhere is
Making quilt art
A quilted work of art is generally defined as two layers of cloth held together by stitching. In most cases, a middle batting layer made of polyester, cotton, wool or silk is also incorporated.
Although quilt art originated in traditional quilting techniques, quilt artists now may use many different processes to create their artwork, including painting, dyeing, stamping, piecing, collage, printing (often incorporating a photograph printed onto fabric), applique, and other complex cloth processes.
Controversies in quilt art in the U.S.
In a field that straddles craft and art, the controversies can arise rather quickly. Jonathan Holstein recounts being accosted by traditional quilters who were confused by the quilts in the
Holstein was also criticized for divorcing the quilts from their historical context, for applying a traditional male-dominated sense of aesthetic value to a woman's art, for dismissing applique quilts as artistically inferior to pieced examples, and for his apparent lack of concern as a collector for the stories of the women who made the quilts, "thereby marginalizing the makers by denying them their personal identities." Shaw, p. 54
Some of these controversies continue to the present day. Lorre M Weidlich, in the Spring 1996 (vol. 6, #9) Newsletter of the Studio Art Quilt Associates, uses Carol Gilligan's theory of the differences between male and female values to reject Michael James's call for stronger art in the quilt art world. She says that "the male, Jamesian model of 'quilt art' violates the very qualities that initially attracted women to quilting and reinforce their continuing pursuit of it. It feel[s], to a great many of them, alien. The imposition of a male model on a women's expressive form leaves in a position of discomfort the very people who are the life blood of the expressive form." Weidlich p 9.[12] Weidlich argues that quilts emphasize relationship and connection, and that James would remove those association to conform to male standards of the artist as idiosyncratic and subversive.
Other observers of the evolution of the quilt art medium point to the long time participation of quilt making by men. The Weidlich argument could be interpreted more against elite art attitudes and less about gender appropriation. In one of the forward essays to "Man Made Quilts: Civil War to the Present" an exhibition at the Shelburne Museum in 2012, Joe Cunningham points out, "In the centuries before the American Revolution, quilting was a technique learned as a part of the tailor's craft in England. The best known tailor/quilter is Joe Hedley(1750-1826) of Northumberland....." Cunningham goes on to cite many more examples of male quilt making from the past up to the present. Jean Burks essay also lists multiple examples of men creating quilts and states, "No discussion of male contributions to quilting would be complete without mentioning the considerable achievements of psychiatrist William Rush Dunton (1868-1966). Dr Dunton, the founder of the American Occupational Therapy Association, encouraged his patients to pursue quilting as a curative activity/therapeutic diversion...."[13]
Another controversy involves the work and people in the isolated Alabama hamlet of
Most of these controversies have become muted as the fine arts have opened up to a vast variety of materials and methods. The materials and structures assembled by quilt artists have gone beyond or negated many of the older connotations of the quilt. Nevertheless, many questions and concerns remain and are hotly debated.
Contemporary quilt artists
Most quilt artists work in the area of the fine arts, specifically the visual arts. Their works are not generally functional in nature, although there are exceptions. The primary professional English-speaking organization of artists using quilting materials and techniques is the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), the members of which all count themselves as fine artists. SAQA has almost 3000 members [when?]. A number of contemporary fine artists employ quilting techniques in their work. In the Fall, 2010 issue of the "Surface Design Association Journal", Michael James names the following as contemporary fine artists working with quilting techniques: Michael Cummings, Ursula Rauch, Ai Kijima, Lynn Setterington, Dorothy Caldwell, Diana Harrison, Tracey Emin, Velda Newman, Clare Plug, Anna Von Mertens, Linda MacDonald, M.Joan Lintault, Susan Shie, Terrie Mangat, and Jo Budd. [citation needed]
There are some artists that are not using quilting techniques of hand sewing, machine sewing or long arm for example, but who the quilting 'world' have taken an interest. Artists like Fraser Smith,
References
- ^ "About Quilt Art". Quilt Art. Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
- ISBN 978-1-59668-099-9.
- ^ Shaw 1997 Shaw's work is the most complete published study of quilt art. The book, 10 inches by 14 inches, includes 308 illustrations, most of them full page spreads of individual works of art. An excerpt from the book can be found at Shaw, Robert (2007). "A History of the Art Quilt, excerpted from The Art Quilt". Studio Arts Quilt Associates. Archived from the original on 2007-05-09. Retrieved 2007-09-16.
- ^ Welch, Amei. "Fabric of their Lives". Smithsonian.com. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ Shaw 1997, p. 46
- ^ McMorris & Kile 1986, p. 43
- ^ Shaw 1997, pp. 48–49
- ^ Shaw 1997, pp. 49–52
- ^ Holstein 1991
- ^ McMorris & Kile 1986, p. 51
- ^ McMorris & Kile 1986
- ^ Michael James' remarks, to which Weidlich was responding, were given as a keynote address to the American Quilters Society Quilt Show and Contest Awards Banquet and subsequently published as "Quilt Art at Century's End," American Quilter, Vol VII, #3 (Fall, 1992) pp. 52-74.
- ISBN 978-0-939384-37-2.
- ^ Johnson, Bob (08-25-2008). "Suits brought by rural Alabama quilters resolved", Associated Press
- ^ Davis, Mary Kay. "Fraser Smith - Carved Wood Quilts - TheQuiltShow.com". thequiltshow.com. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
- ^ "Fraser Smith: Carved Quilts Houston Center for Contemporary Craft". Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
- ^ admin (2016-11-16). "Ian Berry: Behind Closed Doors - TextileArtist.org". TextileArtist.org. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
- ISSN 0956-1382. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
- ^ "Artist creates works in denim". BBC News. 2018-05-23. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
Bibliography
- Gillespie, Spike (2009), Quilting Art, Voyageur Press, ISBN 978-0-7603-3526-0
- Holstein, Jonathan (1991), Abstract Design in American Quilts: a Biography of an Exhibition, Louisville, Kentucky: The Kentucky Quilt Project, ISBN 1-880584-00-X
- McMorris, Penny; Kile, Michael (1986), The Art Quilt, San Francisco, CA: The Quilt Digest Press, ISBN 0-913327-08-5McMorris's book contains a great deal of history about the social conditions that led to the rise of quilting and art quilting in the 1960s.
- Shaw, Robert (1997), The Art Quilt, N/A: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc, ISBN 0-88363-325-6