SAQA show opens at Indianapolis Museum of Art

I'm off to Indianapolis this afternoon for the opening of the SAQA-sponsored exhibit, "Dialogues," in which artists were asked for new interpretations of the century-old applique quilts by Marie Wilson in the permanent collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  I have a piece in the exhibit, and will also be on a panel discussion as part of the opening festivities.

IMA is a big-time art museum and it's exciting to see that SAQA's focus on getting art venues for its exhibits in addition to the usual quilt shows is paying off.  I've heard wonderful things about the "Stories of Migration" exhibit at the National Textile Museum in Washington DC, and I hope the IMA show will be as well received.

I'll take notes and pictures and report back!  Meanwhile, here's my quilt from the exhibit:

Zoe and Isaac Stargazing (detail below)

In the dictionary

Sunday funnies 19

Happy Father's Day!  If your father is still with you, give him a big hug.

SDA show 5 -- other strange materials

Yes, it's sort of a fiber show, but expect all kinds of other materials, fiber-like or not, to show up.

Ellen Schiffman, Star (details below)

Here's a piece constructed of Q-tips, making an academic arrangement of specimens such as you might find in the natural history museum, presented in an important wooden case.  Each one is different; they could be sea anemones, crystals or the seedheads of dandelions ready to float away.  

I like this piece for its austere palette and formal symmetry, the variety of effects she has achieved by cutting and assembling the Q-tips in different ways.  And of course against the austerity and formality, there's humor.

Xia Gao, Breaths (detail below)

Austere palette and everyday materials again, obsessively transformed into an elegant presentation: start with stretched canvas, add a bazillion plain old metal pins.  The artist statement talks about "double-sided images," which makes me wonder whether the pictures might have been displayed away from the wall to see the pointed ends as well as the heads.

Just the slightest touch of red enlivens the left-hand piece of the triptych.

Next post:  let's see some stitching!!!

The SDA show, "Transgressing Traditions," will be at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn NY, through August 21.

SDA show 4 -- plastic

Any time you see a fiber show that's looking for "new," "nontraditional," "edgy" or "innovative" work, you'll see stuff made out of plastic, sure as night follows day.  And nine times out of ten, the artist statement will say this is a commentary on consumer waste and environmental degradation.  Some might even argue that making quilts or weavings or whatever out of plastic has now become traditional, maybe even a cliche.  

So when you find some of these objects in a show, you don't really have to stop and think whether this is revolutionary or innovative, because it isn't.  You can cut to the chase: do you like the object, how it was made and how it looks?

Zona Sage, The New Black

I vote yes for this piece, which is made from plastic billboard signs, sewed together as a quilt.  The orange is striking, and I love the way the artist has sliced up the letters to make an abstract design, still recognizable as typography but also formally animated and balanced. Particularly nice is the way the shapes blend into one another across the seamlines, and how the figure and ground shift back and forth -- are we seeing orange on a white background or vice versa?  My only wish would be for this to be four times as big (it's about 30 inches across, as I recall) for real impact.

Emily Dvorin, Urban Ephemeral

I like this piece, too, a "basket" woven from plastic oxygen tubing, cable ties, acupuncture needle holders and some wire.  The medical materials are a bit off-putting, but the colors are light and bright and the green leaf-shaped doodads take the edge off the industrial vibe.

Christine Holtz, Ten Second Rule (detail below)

I thought this work, a big bag-like form made from junk food wrappers, was a little less successful.  I know we're supposed to take the message that junk food is bad for you and even disgusting in hindsight (the artist statement notes that the object is wedged in the corner "like a giant piece of discarded gum") but to me it just looked like a beanbag chair with a particularly busy print cover.  Been there, seen that.

Next post:  other non-fiber materials in the spotlight.

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