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Massillon Museum displaying examples from Colorado as art
By Dorothy Shinn
Beacon Journal art & architecture critic
Published on Sunday, Oct 19, 2008
Contrary to the current enthusiasm for quilts, those of us who are old enough understand that the love of quilts as an art medium is a relatively new phenomenon.
In fact, the history of quilts in America isn't one of steady growth. Before and following World War II, quilt making in America took a tumble. And except for its survival in rural America, among ethnic groups and the Amish, the popularity of quilt making had widely waned in America.
Until 1971, that is.
That year, the exhibit Abstract Design in American Quilts, curated by Jonathan Holstein and Gail van der Hoof, opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It is seen by most quilt scholars as the watershed event for a renaissance in the 20th and 21st centuries. By displaying them on museum walls and comparing their qualities of composition and design to that of modern art, the show put quilts on equal footing with the best the art world had to offer.
And it led to what is now being called the Art Quilt Movement.
Through Nov. 30, the Massillon Museum shows a patch of that movement, Rooted in Tradition: Art Quilts From the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.
This exhibit was curated by Judith Trager for the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, located in Golden, Colo., and founded in 1990 with a gift of 100 traditional quilts collected by Golden quilter Eugenia Mitchell.
There's a flier accompanying this exhibit that contains a lot of useful information, but it also includes one bit of history that needs to be corrected.
Under the subheading ''Revival,'' the flier states that ''perhaps the most important spark that ignited the quilt renaissance was the groundbreaking 1979 exhibition of Amish quilts at the Whitney Museum of American Art, curated by Jonathan Holstein.''
Everything in that statement is correct except the date. The exhibit toured for many years, and may not have been shown in Denver until 1979, but the correct opening year is 1971, according to several sources. The most prominent is the Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska, which is now the owner of the Holstein collection, including the Whitney exhibition quilts.
The flier points out that art quilts come in all sizes, aren't generally usable as bed coverings and are made from unconventional materials, in unconventional shapes and in odd sizes.
''Art quilts are made not for comfort, but for viewing,'' the flier tells us, ''although many bring the idea of comfort to the viewer.''
Saying size doesn't matter may be convenient for the organizers, but many visitors, given Ohio's vibrant contemporary art quilt tradition, will probably find the majority of the quilts in this show disappointingly small.
There are notable exceptions. Terrie Hancock Mangat's Desert Storm (1993), at 85.5 by 95.5 inches, is among the largest and most impressive, both conceptually and visually. This work shows missiles standing ready, overlaid by yellow ribbons and surrounded by tiny skeleton-filled caskets, crushed cars and fuel pumps.
Another, R.E.M. (1990), is 96.5 by 99.5 inches and is also visually impressive. Conceptually, the quilt represents, according to creator Faye Anderson, ''the importance of a good night's sleep in resolving design/composition challenges.''
Then there's the beautiful shaped quilt, Kimonos in My Kimono House (1986), by Yvonne Porcella of Modesto, Calif., which is prominently displayed in anticipation of the Canton Museum of Art's upcoming Kimono exhibition.
Jane Dunnewold's Baby Quilt (1994), created of silk, synthetics, photo transfers, gold foil and birthday candles, includes at its center a reproduction of a photograph by Nell Dorr. Dorr, who rose to international fame as a fine art photographer, grew up and learned photography just a block from the Massillon Museum, where her family lived and operated a portrait studio.
Quilters, whether they create art quilts or bed quilts, are known for their sly humor. Carrying on this tradition is Elaine Spencer with her reference to the infamous hanging chads, in Every Vote Counts: Election 2000 (2000).
The exhibit demonstrates the continuity of the art quilt movement and its development from tradition-based quilts, such as Marilyn Chaffee's Tetrad I (1981), which was machine-pieced and hand-quilted using commercial fabrics, to Gaye Fraas and Duncan Slade's Watermark ''D'' Delta (2003), created using whole cloth painted, screen-printed, digitally printed with reactive dyes and machine-quilted.
The museum has organized the show chronologically, with works from the 1980s and 1990s in the main gallery on the first floor and works from the 2000s on the second floor.
The specifics of art quilts — or the history of quilts in America — are easy to research. A good place to begin is the Studio Art Quilt Associates Web site (http://www.saqa.com)
In the United States, there are innumerable groups devoted to the art quilt, but perhaps none so well known as the American Quilt Study Group founded by Sally Garoutte in Mill Valley, Calif., in 1980 (http://www.americanquiltstudygroup.org).
What began as a small group gathered around Garoutte's kitchen table has grown into a unique and highly respected nonprofit quilt research organization with more than 1,000 members in the United States and abroad. It's headquartered in Lincoln, Neb., and its feature event is the annual seminar, which was held earlier this month in Columbus.
Also in Lincoln is the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska (http://www.quiltstudy.org)
If this exhibit ignites renewed interest in quilts, you're in luck. Through Jan. 4, the Butler Institute of American Art's Trumbull branch in Howland is showing Depth & Breadth: A Quilt Survey, exhibiting the works of six established quilt artists, organized by the Butler and curated by Mary Lou Alexander. For information, call 330-743-1107, Ext. 123.
Details
Show: Rooted in Tradition: Art Quilts from the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.
When: Through Nov. 30;; 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday
Where: Massillon Museum,. 121 Lincoln Way E., Massillon
Admission: Free
Information: 330-833-4061 or www.massillonmuseum.org
Dorothy Shinn writes about art and architecture for the Akron Beacon Journal. Send information to her at the Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309-0640 or dtgshinn@neo.rr.com.
Contrary to the current enthusiasm for quilts, those of us who are old enough understand that the love of quilts as an art medium is a relatively new phenomenon.
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