SAQA
Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.
art quilt collector
Issue No. 2
Welcome to the second issue of Art Quilt Collector I’m thrilled to announce that we sold out of Issue No.1 and had to do a reprint. Art Quilt Collector now has more than 350 subscribers! In this issue, we’re introducing a new feature – The Collector’s Bookshelf. We will run reviews of new publications, and we are asking you for your personal book recommendations. This issue contains a review of And Still We Rise by Carolyn Mazloomi. And in Issue No. 3, The Collector’s Bookshelf will review Japanese Contemporary Quilts and Quilters: The Story of an American Import by Teresa Duryea Wong. We’d love to hear from you: What is your favorite book as an art quilt collector? Some of mine include the Quilt National catalogs and the SAQA Portfolios. I use them extensively when I’m researching artists for a new book. For sheer reading pleasure, I love Batsford publications – I recently purchased Text in Textile Art by Sara Impey. Please email AQC@SAQA.com with your book recommendation. Send me the title, author, publisher, and a few sentences about why it’s your go-to resource. The best recommendation is from a fellow collector! —Martha Sielman SAQA Executive Director Errata: Our apologies for misspelling Karen Schulz’s name on the Photo Finish page of Issue No. 1.
Contents Document your collection with professional photography . . . . . . 3 New storage facility for John M. Walsh III collection . . . . . . . . . . 4 Artists to watch Natalya Aikens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Heather Dubreuil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 K. Velis Turan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Gallery: Cityscape/Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Michael James: Ambiguity & Enigma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Collector’s bookshelf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 SAQA exhibition Two by Twenty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. (SAQA) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development, documentation, and publications. ©2015 Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. SAQA Art Quilt Collector is published quarterly by Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc., a nonprofit educational organization. Publications Office: P.O. Box 572, Storrs, CT 06268. ISSN 2379-9439 (print) ISSN 2379-9455 (online) Managing Editor: Martha Sielman Designer: Deidre Adams Subscription is $29.95 for four issues. Outside USA: add $12.00 Subscribe online: SAQA.com>Store Cover: A ll the spaces of intimacy ©Michael James, 2015 see story p. 26
Document your collection with professional photography by Dana Jones
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ollectors of art quilts need to have professional photos on file of every piece in their collections so they can share the artwork with museums, publishers, and editors via email or electronic file-sharing programs. Artists can help their collectors with this by providing photos when their work is purchased. The time to have quilts photographed is as soon as you start collecting, perhaps even before you realize that the several pieces you’ve purchased — at a local SAQA meeting, in an art gallery, or through the SAQA Benefit Auction— are a formal collection. Having low-resolution snapshots may suffice for insurance purposes, but such images will not be adequate for most other purposes. Have photos taken of the full pieces, being sure all edges, bound or otherwise finished, are included. The edges are part of the art. Photos of details are an added plus, though not necessary when you have high-resolution, large-format photos taken. When you get top-notch photos of the full pieces, you often are able to pull details from those images. It is also a good idea to have the back of the pieces photographed, being sure the labels are easy to read in the photos. It’s worth the time and expense to find and work with a photographer who has experience photographing textiles and who knows how to properly light fiber art to highlight stitching, embellishments, and surface-design elements. Collectors who began collecting before the advent of digital photography should have slides and prints of
that earlier work converted to digital formats. When you have photos in hand, the next step is to set up electronic and/or paper files using a standard naming system and creating data files that include the following information for each art quilt: • the title of the piece; • the name of the artist as it should appear whenever the work is shown or published; • the size of the piece, best written as height x width in inches or centi meters; • the year the piece was completed; • where and when the piece was purchased, from whom, and the price paid; • materials and techniques used in making the piece; • any interesting information about the piece and the artist, such as places
where the piece has been shown, what inspired the piece and/or its title, and stories behind the piece. Establishing a consistent standard for naming photo files will make it easy to find photos of art quilts when they are requested by museum curators, exhibition planners, and editors. It is a plus if the naming system communicates clearly the artist’s name and the title to others who will work with the photos. It’s helpful if the photo files are accompanied by release forms from artists to collectors outlining how the collectors can use the images and if and when artists must be notified. Such forms can outline copyright guidelines and can give collectors permission to share images of collected pieces with exhibition venues and publications. Photo files can also include appraisal information that may be needed when collectors share and ship pieces to museums and exhibitions.
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Careful planning ensures collection longevity New facility addresses storage concerns for the John M. Walsh III Collection of Contemporary Art Quilts by Cynthia Wenslow
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primary concern of art collectors is preservation. How is it possible to keep artwork from degrading over time? For collectors of art quilts and other textiles, this is not a trivial issue. Conservators point to storage conditions as one of the ways a collector can directly influence the longevity of art, preserving both its beauty and monetary value for a lifetime or longer. For art quilt collector Jack Walsh, the topic required careful consideration as his collection evolved. Now one of the foremost collections of contemporary textile art in private hands, the John M. Walsh III Collection of Contemporary Art Quilts started haphazardly in 1992. “I literally knew nothing when we started,” Walsh confesses. “I had seen Michael James’ work
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on television and that was what inspired me to be interested in art quilts. “I had dabbled,” relates Walsh. “I had purchased two Mennonite quilts, an Amish quilt, a Native American quilt, and a crazy quilt, and I had my grandmother’s quilts. I covered most of the house that I lived in with those quilts, and I had no idea what I was doing.” After meeting renowned curator Penny McMorris, Walsh began to collect in a more conscious way, with McMorris guiding him. “We’ve been at it for 23 years now, and it’s turned out to be a wonderful experience for me. And, you know, it’s self-feeding,” Walsh laughs. Walsh became friends with fellow collectors Robert and Ardis James, whose art quilt collection was expansive. “I had gone to Chappaqua, New York, and seen how the Jameses stored
their quilts. I tried to use the same plan,” Walsh says. “Of course, they had 1,000 quilts and at that point I might have had 100. They laid them flat, one quilt, then sheets, one quilt, then sheets, etc. So that was what I did originally. I had two stacks of quilts, 50 each.” About five years ago Walsh retired from the New Jersey-based business he founded and relocated to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, where his family had longstanding ties. Walsh set out to find a solution to the dilemma of properly storing his collection, which continued to expand at the rate of four or five acquisitions per year. Walsh was introduced to objects conservator Lisa Goldberg, who had previously worked with the Smithsonian Institution. “I have moved a lot of collections and specialize in storage solutions,” Goldberg says. “I’m not a textile conservator, but many of of Jack’s quilts have components that would not normally be considered textile. I have a fondness for textiles and I quilt myself, so this is like a match made in heaven! “The quilts were stored for a long time in a local fine arts storage facility that has humidity- and temperature-controlled space,” relates Goldberg. “They service many of the museums in the area. Jack had his collection there for a year and a half. “Jack went through a whole process in terms of figuring out what to do about storage up here,” says Goldberg. all photos by Cynthia Wenslow
Lisa Goldberg and Jack Walsh
“He could have stored them at his home in Elmira, but that wasn’t an option. He could have continued to store them at the fine arts facility and we discussed it. But they would have had to build a racking system for the quilts, and that was going to be expensive, with an ongoing cost.” “We looked at other museum storage facilities, but that didn’t pan out either. There were many months of discussions before Jack finally said, ‘You know, I think probably the best solution is to build my own place and then I’ve got complete control of it.’ ” Walsh had an inkling of what he was getting into. While living in New Jersey, he had created a dedicated storage space for his collection. “I constructed a special room in my house, about 18 feet square, working within the confines of the house as it was designed. I really didn’t build an addition; I took a space and reconstructed it,” explains Walsh. In upstate New York, Walsh took a different approach, building from the ground up. “Jack worked very closely with an architect who had his own thoughts, and we talked a number of times,” Goldberg says. Walsh adds, “It took about three months to design and then about six months to construct.” “I think we would do things a little differently now,” confides Goldberg. “I
wish the space were a little larger. For example, we couldn’t figure out what to do about crate storage and now we’re grappling with that. “When the architect asked how large, I asked Jack, ‘How large is the largest quilt? Add three to four feet on either side so you can lay it out on the table, and that’s enough,’” Goldberg continues. Walsh says, “We ended up with about 35 feet by 24 feet, because we’re talking about big quilts.” “Another 10 feet would have been nice,” Goldberg adds. “But there were space limitations with the site itself.” The building blends beautifully into its surroundings, looking more like a converted carriage house than an art storage facility. Located on the side of a wooded hill with a creek running in a ravine several yards behind it, the building is accessed through double doors with a keypad lock system. Security measures include exterior and interior live-feed security cameras that can be viewed from anywhere on Walsh’s iPad. An entry foyer separates the art quilt storage room from the temperature and wind fluctuations produced by opening the outside door. Bookshelves line one wall of the foyer, loaded with reference books and art quilt exhibition catalogs. Recounting the features of the building, Goldberg mentions that the
storage room is not more complicated than it needs to be. “Obviously, we could have done a lot more to make this space a super-duper environmentally controlled space, but it’s holding its own pretty well. And we decided to try that. The space is an envelope and we have a data logger, so we’re tracking it,” she explains. “It’s pretty good, and as long as it gets cold, I don’t overly worry.” Mold is cited as a potential issue for textiles stored in warm and humid climates, but Goldberg says it isn’t a large concern with Walsh’s collection. “This building has never gotten relative humidity high enough to cause problems. It has to be above 55% typically, with no air movement,” she says. “There is air movement in here when we want it. There is a fan, and an external exhaust fan as well. So, mold could be a problem, but it’s not a problem here, or hasn’t been yet.” The windowless inner room where the collection is stored is lined on two sides with powder-coated metal racks holding the art quilts. “We designed the racks to hold 150 art quilts,” says Walsh. Several lower shelves on the racks hold wooden crates. “We just moved into this space a year ago, and it’s still in progress,” says Goldberg. “The wooden crates, I would like to see them be moved out of here, but they hold objects. We are going to be putting shelving up here to take the objects out of the crates, but we first have to find a place for the crates. Also, we don’t have a good system yet for how to deal with all of the hanging hardware. Right now it’s stacked in the corner, but obviously that’s not what we want.” To minimize stress on the fibers that could come from being folded and developing creases, all the art quilts SAQA Art Quilt Collector | 5
are rolled on acid-free cardboard tubes that have been cut to size and labeled for the various quilts. Each art quilt is interleaved with cotton fabric before rolling. Many of them also have polyester batting rolled inside to add soft cushioning and make sure that there is no stretching. Goldberg points out that she uses only heat-bonded polyester batting. The distinction is an important one; spun-bonded polyester batting is manufactured using adhesives that can contain formaldehyde or other volatiles that can damage the art quilts. When batting is used, the batting is lined on both sides with acid-free tissue paper to ensure that the polyester doesn’t touch the artwork. “The decision to roll a quilt face in or face out depends on the construction of the quilt and how many attachments there are, what kind of attachments,” Goldberg says. 6 | SAQA Art Quilt Collector
Each rolled art quilt ends up with a cotton cover to protect the outside surfaces, held in place with strips of torn cotton that are tied tightly enough to secure the bundle, but not so tightly that they place unwanted pressure on the art quilt inside. Finally, each roll receives a label identifying the art quilt inside by artist and title. The packaged art quilts are placed on long rods that are then placed on the racks. The rods are secured with pins inserted into the rack on either side to prevent them from rolling. The racks are constructed from powder-coated steel uprights, with spacers to provide horizontally stored layers of quilt rolls at adjustable intervals. “There are lots of designs for handmade quilt or textile racks like this that are used by various collecting institutions,” Goldberg says. ‘’You can make a rack on a chain that lowers and raises from both sides; you can make one out
of wood that levers out; you can install rolling racks that allow storage of multiple layers; you can go high end and purchase specially designed aluminum ones which are lightweight and really beautiful. “However, this is what we settled on for a number of reasons. This option seemed to us to be more efficient for this particular room and it’s easier to store the rolls horizontally and get more in. We can lift them out with ease. It’s a very simple design, but I love it,” affirms Goldberg. “And we could get more rods and fit more shelves in if we wanted to space them differently.” The construction of the art quilts in the collection adds some complications for safely storing the work. Not only does Walsh primarily collect large works, he collects art quilts that incorporate some nontraditional materials. “Some objects have inherent vice,” Goldberg says, “so if an object has
Anne Kingsbury, Circus 144 x 60 inches Overall (left) and detail (above) photos by Karen Bell
Protect your art quilts Recommendations from Lisa Goldberg wood, plastic or some other material as a part of it, there’s not much you can say. It is what it is.” Gesturing to a large crate, Walsh asks, “Are you familiar with the work of Anne Kingsbury? She works a lot in ceramics and leather and suede and so forth. This is the circus quilt. It’s 12 feet by 5 feet. It weighs 75 pounds.” Goldberg says, “A wooden crate is not the best solution for storing it, but because of its weight, we had limited choices. The quilt inside is padded and folded in such a way that it won’t be damaged, and the crate is fully lined inside.” Walsh delightedly describes the art quilt. “It has three rings. The lion tamer in the middle, the high-wire act on top, and the bareback riders down below.
Around all three rings, the audience sits and is comprised of 367 individually made little ceramic figures.” Walsh notes, “It took Anne three years to make.” Even though most art quilt collectors don’t have all the same challenges presented by Walsh’s circus quilt, Goldberg says it’s a good idea to take some of the collection’s storage precautions and apply them to a collection housed anywhere. “You just want to make sure you’re reducing the basic risks to your artwork by using any common-sense measures that you can take.” Cynthia Wenslow is an artist, writer and curator based near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Contact her at cynthia@cynthiawenslow.com
• Avoid storing and displaying art quilts near windows or strong light sources • Don’t store or display art quilts near heating vents or heat sources • Roll stored art quilts on acid-free tubes whenever possible, covering them with clean unsized and undyed fabric • If art quilts must be folded for storage, pad the folds to prevent creases and place them in acid-free boxes • Minimize unnecessary handling • Avoid wide fluctuations in temperature and humidity • Avoid keeping your art quilts in a room where food is located or served to prevent spills and discourage pests • Keep storage and display rooms clean and as dust-free as possible • Use HEPA filters on vacuum cleaners • Handle the work with respect and care SAQA Art Quilt Collector | 7
artists to watch
Natalya Aikens Pleasantville, New York, U.S.
A lifelong romance with cities drives Natalya Aikens’ art. Soaring architecture, Gothic arches, and wrought-iron filigree inspire the forms which she captures using a variety of unusual materials, such as plastics and papers. Strong, graphic lines of stitched marks connect those materials with her love of fiber.
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top: Dormition Cupola
12 x 12 inches, 2013 bottom: Iron Spine 2
24 x 18 inches, 2015
Tale of two cities I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and emigrated at age 11, so I had rather romanticized memories of the city. When I went back to visit as an adult, I fell in love with the city all over again and took a gazillion photos during that visit and even more on subsequent visits. St. Petersburg is called “Venice of the North� with good reason. It has so many canals and islands and all the beautiful buildings. Its architecture really is poetry in stone, and it seemed like the perfect place for my artistic explorations. New York City is the second city I grew up in. All my so-called formative years were spent there: junior high school in Queens, High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. I live and breathe this city. So when I felt that I had come to a resting point with my St. Petersburg series, it was just natural to continue with the architecture of my other favorite city. There are some architectural similarities between them of course with the older romantic buildings, but here they have those gritty fire escapes. No other city does fire escapes quite like this! And I get to play with all the modern glass architecture and the gigantic iron bridges. They create such wonderful juxtapositions.
Photos and Photoshop I use my photos for inspiration. I am always looking for interesting details and textures. Generally my compositions are put together in Photoshop. I can combine an interesting skyline with SAQA Art Quilt Collector | 9
a great rusty railing. If a detail, a building, or even a whole street scene appeals to me, I’ll take as many pictures as time allows from several angles, because I never know which one will speak to me, sometimes months later, when I am ready to make art.
Stitch and text My process is all rather intuitive. The piece usually tells me what kind of stitching it wants. That said, I’m a bit of an instant gratification junkie, so the larger pieces are mostly machine stitched as I have a lead foot and I thread-sketch very quickly. It is very satisfying to get what is in my head out onto the surface as fast as possible. But then I like to take my time and meditate on a piece with hand stitching. On a larger work I’ll add details with hand stitching, and the smaller pieces 10 | SAQA Art Quilt Collector
are usually completely hand stitched. I consider hand stitching very therapeutic and healing. Using text is very new to me. I haven’t quite figured out my way around it yet. I do feel that the work becomes more of a statement with the use of text. It seems to drive home my points about recycling a bit more. Perhaps not very forcefully yet, but I am working up my nerve for that. I feel as though the text adds a bit of an edge to my mostly benign images.
Nontraditional materials I don’t really consider my materials unusual; they are very basic. They are not traditional, of course. Once you play with them, plastic shopping bags, dryer sheets, papers, and plastic netting are all very fabric-like and behave similarly. You just have to remember that
you can’t iron the plastic! (Although you could for a completely different effect.) I don’t iron my plastics mainly because I worry about the fumes that they may produce; I don’t want to expose my family to unnecessary chemicals. But I thoroughly enjoy layering translucent plastic. Many people who see my plastic art think that I have painted on the surface, but I don’t need paint at all. Bags come in an amazing variety of colors, and layering them just adds to the palette. It’s a free material that otherwise would pollute our environment. I have researched our local recycling rules and it’s rather uncertain for plastic bags, so why not use them in my art instead? There are only a few challenges that I find in working with plastic. One is that once you make a hole with the
needle, it’s there forever, and another is that when there are only a few layers, the plastic can easily rip along Âneedle-stitched perforations. But I consider these challenges to be solved creatively. The main challenge is to try to forget the pedestrian nature of the bags and treat them as a fabric with lots of potential. www.artbynatalya.com
above left: City Love Affair 2
52 x 19 inches, 2011 above right: Daybreak
12 x 12 inches, 2015 right: Rhetoric
40 x 40 inches, 2015 opposite page: Glass Bridge (detail)
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artists to watch
Heather Dubreuil Hudson, Quebec, Canada
The color pulls you in first – vibrant, luscious, succulent color. Then you notice the slightly off-center stitched details: windows, aerial antennas, railings, downspouts, which create an effect similar to watercolor line and wash paintings. But it’s the contrast between the hard edges of the city buildings and the softness of Heather Dubreuil’s chosen medium that ultimately captivates you completely.
53rd Street West 24 x 18 inches 2012
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Love of cities Much of my work has been inspired by the cities near where I live: Montreal and Quebec. But I love visiting London and Paris because of the vibrancy of the street life and the quality of the art museums. While I enjoyed Amsterdam, its landscape didn’t lend itself well to my work because the façades are so flat. It was difficult to get an angle on the buildings as I was seeing everything straight on, from street level. New York, on the other hand, offers great opportunities to view the architecture from a slightly elevated or sunken perspective.
Taking photos I look for the rhythmic patterning of doors and windows, strong diagonals, the solidity of interlocking forms, and an
unexpected perspective. If the sky forms an interesting negative space, that’s all the better. I have a particular fondness for water towers and chimney pots. I use the computer to produce a black-and-white photo the size of the piece that I plan to make. With a marker, I trace over the main lines of the image. Seeing the simple black-andwhite drawing emerge on paper is one of the most satisfying aspects of my process, and it helps me evaluate the composition. Sometimes the detail on a shutter or a row of balusters is just the visual texture that is required and helps the viewer make sense of the image.
Color I did a series of pieces that were just line. They were made at the beginning
of my Cityscapes series, but I soon tired of the process. I wanted the challenge of working with line, shape, and color. I dye my own fabrics and often do a run of dyed fabrics with a range of intensities all in the same color. I might choose a particular color for the sunlit face of a building and then pair it with a more intense version for the shaded side. At other times I will create a range of 8 to 9 colors, transitioning from one hue to another. Pairing closely related colors can sometimes create a translucent effect. I like to create a particular mood with my color choices: the hot energy of pinks and oranges, or the wistfulness
Camden Town #2 18 x 24 inches, 2014
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of warm and cool greys. There’s nothing like the pure joy of throwing yardage together and seeing how one color animates another.
My mother’s influence As a child, I was constantly making things, and cloth and yarn were readily available. My mother died when she was very young. She was an accomplished needlewoman, and I sometimes wonder if my choice of medium may be based on her legacy, an attempt to connect with who she was. In a broader sense, I see my choice of fiber as an homage to the culture of women’s needlework. There is a special, intangible dimension to work in cloth, not just the physical dimension of texture and pattern, but an elusive, emotional layering, suggesting warmth, heritage, and intensive, meditative working.
Fine art training I did not take a single painting course in my fine arts program. The style of painting being taught at the time was hard-edge abstraction of the Barnett Newman style, which did not interest me. I was more interested in Formalism. My intention is to have the various elements of color, line and composition form an impression of aesthetic order. The social or geographic aspects of the subject are less important. I look at my work analytically: Are there curved lines to contrast with the straight? Are there cool colors to add spark to the warm? Is there a variety of size and shape? Rhythm? Unity? I take my cue from my subject, but I do not hesitate to edit an image to make it more pleasing to my eye.
Shows and stretcher bars I seek out opportunities to show my work in solo and group shows in both galleries and cultural centers, and I am listed on TAFA (www.tafalist.com) and TODL (www.todl.com). I My website lists upcoming events, including a solo show at the Shenkman Arts Centre in Ottawa, Feb. 11 – March 13, 2016. I have found that galleries accept work in fiber more readily when it is mounted on a gallery canvas with stretcher bars. I am ambivalent about this practice. Mounting on a canvas gives a small piece more presence on the wall, but it also seems to deny the essential nature of cloth. In the future, I would like to make larger work that hangs freely and challenge the galleries to accept it for what it is. www.heatherdubreuil.com
top: Port Clyde
11 x 8.5 inches, 2014 above: Boathouses #1
12 x 12 inches, 2013 14 | SAQA Art Quilt Collector
Water Tower #1 24 x 18 inches, 2013 SAQA Art Quilt Collector | 15
artists to watch
K. Velis Turan Earlton, New York, U.S.
West Village East 37 X 25 inches, 2014
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New York City provides limitless inspiration for
Architecture and highways
K. Velis Turan. Skyscapers, bridges, train tracks,
Architecture is enthralling to me, buildings both urban and rural. I am captivated by the design of buildings, how they create an array of textures, lines, angles and shadows. The excitement of cities is a favorite subject of mine. Luckily I live just a couple of hours away from New York City, one of the most exciting cities in the world. My background as an illustrator and graphic designer now forms the basis of my art. I appreciate the way things fit together. Recently I have been doing a series on Intersections based on overhead photographs of highway interchanges that demonstrate the planning necessary in the construction of the roads. How to get vehicles from one place to another via the easiest route is a puzzle, and intersections are the answer for at least a section of these routes. I find the highway intersections graphically pleasing and exciting.
and highways fill her work with geometric intricacies. Vignettes of city residents interacting with their urban environment provide humaninterest stories that also inspire her.
Photos When I visit places, I take a lot of photos. I review them again and again and after a while some come to the top. They just need to be made into art. Since there are no rules about using a photo as inspiration, I can add, delete, or adjust elements in any way that makes sense to me. I want my work to capture what is best in any landscape: the design, color, texture, jazz and energy, without ugliness. The overall design is what I look for in each piece. But where a figure is appropriate I’ll add it, as in Village Psychic. I was drawn to the combination of the building, the signage, and the fortuneteller sitting on the stoop. It was a whole story. In Broadway El, I liked the way the train tracks lined up like the four people sitting on the bench waiting for the next train. I used the photo I took of the people and transferred it onto fabric to get them into the work. They were important to both the design and the story.
Deconstructed screen printing I use a variation of deconstructed screen printing, a technique that was developed by Kerr Grabowski.
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above: Baltimore Row
24 x 39 inches, 2014 right: The Village Psychic
35 inches X 25 inches, 2011
I start with a series of drawings, some from photo graphs, others from ideas I have that are kicking around in my head or in my sketchbook. I’ll draw several variations until I come up with my final version, which I then enlarge to the full size of the screen. I make up drawing fluid, which is a mixture of sodium alginate and dye (usually black). Using a syringe filled with the drawing fluid, I trace the drawing onto the screen. These lines act as a resist to the dyes, giving me lines and color separations on my piece. Once the screen is dry, I print onto a large piece of broadcloth using fabric dyes, soda ash, and the sodium alginate mixture forced through the screen with a squeegee. I let the dyes develop with time and heat, then wash, and decide how to proceed. Currently, I am using more textile paints made from concentrates, watercolor crayons, fabric markers, photo transfers and embellishments to get the feeling I want in the pieces.
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Color and stitch Zinnias are my favorite flowers. I plant a large garden with zinnias every year. They are bright, bold, and come in all brilliant colors. They make me happy. My love of flowers gives me the colors I use in my work. Why should my art be realistic? It doesn’t have to be. It can be any way I want it to be, and I want it colorful. I don’t feel a piece is done until I have added my “thread strokes” through free-motion machine stitching. Thread strokes are to my quilt what brush strokes are to a painting. They add dimension, color, and texture to each piece. I’m not precise in my stitching either with my machine or by hand; I just want to follow the clues from the piece, adding to the surface until I am satisfied that it is completed.
Framing and selling It is important to me that my work is easy to display and hang properly. My “back-side frames” have four wooden slats: two wide slats on the top and bottom and two narrow slats on the sides. These are sealed and painted so they won’t react with the fabric. Then they are inserted into fabric pockets sewn to the back of the piece. This method makes my work easy to ship and store. I like the way my work is presented by this method, and so do the people who buy my pieces. I sell my work at exhibitions, through galleries, and directly to people who contact me. Art quilts are now accepted as fine art, and it’s exciting to have someone love your work enough to pay you money and want to live with it. It’s the best feeling in the world.
Broadway El 28 X 20 inches, 2011
www.kvelisturan.com
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gallery cityscape/ landscape
Phillida Hargreaves Finding Lunch 30 x 15 inches www.phillidahargreaves.ca
Ann Loveless Sleeping Bear Dune Lakeshore 60 x 240 inches Collection of Sleeping Bear Dune National Lakeshore Visitor Center, Empire, Michigan
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www.quiltsbyann.com
gallery | cityscape/ landscape
Kathy York Park Place 51 x 41 inches www.aquamoonartquilts.blogspot.com
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gallery | cityscape/ landscape Shannon Maisel Fragile 48 x 36 inches www.shannonmaisel.com
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53 x 49 inches Collection of Steven and Jane Grossman www.lenorecrawford.com
Annette Kennedy Pelican Sunset 23 x 30 inches www.annettekennedy.com
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gallery | cityscape/ landscape
Lenore Crawford Capturing Brittany
gallery | cityscape/ landscape
B. J. Adams Silver Line 18 x 18 inches www.bjadamsart.com
Melody Randol Still Waters 26 x 54 inches www.melodyquilts.com
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gallery | cityscape/ landscape
Linda Filby-Fisher Leavings 5: A Telling Series 12 x 12 inches www.lindafilby-fisher.com
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Michael James’ quilts explore changes in “every aspect of daily life” by L. Kent Wolgamott | Lincoln Journal Star Reprinted with permission from the Lincoln Journal Star. First published June 6, 2015.
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ourteen quilts hang in the center gallery at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, powerful abstract pieces that evoke nature and movement, rigidity and order, and introspection and reflection. They come from Michael James, the internationally exhibited and collected studio quiltmaker, who, since 2000, has called Lincoln home. The exhibition is titled Ambiguity & Enigma, a perfect description of James’ digitally printed quilts that can combine realism — images of flying cranes, leaves, and Nebraska skies — with reedlike black marks, dots and ovals,
Ambiguity & Enigma: Recent Quilts by Michael James on display at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at Quilt House in Lincoln, Nebraska. ©Michael James Photo by Larry Gawel
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and large color passages, all in rectangular panels arranged into complex, yet coherent quilts. Because of the long-term scheduling required for major exhibitions, the show’s title was chosen in 2013, shortly after James began making the quilts. If it had been named a year later, James said he would have called the show “Every Aspect of Daily Life.” That is because the quilts reflect the last five years in the lives of James and his wife, Judy, who has Alzheimer’s disease, which, as the unused title states, impacts every part of their lives every day.
For now we see through a glass, darkly ©Michael James 2013
Diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in 2009, Judy, who became an artist in her own right in the last 15 years, gave up her studio in 2010. In 2013, she stopped driving and accepted the companionship of paid caregivers. The latter allowed James, who had largely stopped quiltmaking, to start working again. “After her diagnosis, the wind was sucked out of my sails in terms of studio work,” James said. “It was there. It was something I continued to do, but
really half heartedly. There didn’t seem to be much point. In 2013, that started to kind of shift. By that point we were four years into her diagnosis. We kind of made our accommodations with it in our own ways.” The pivotal quilt in the exhibition — and in James’ work since 2013 — is For now we see through a glass, darkly, a quilt that contains five panels derived from pieces of broken glass. For James, the glass provided a connection, literal
and metaphoric, to Judy and their lives dealing with Alzheimer’s. “The month after Judy’s diagnosis in the summer of 2009, our house got broken into,” he said. “The perps, two teenagers, broke through our bedroom window. All the shattered glass was all over the bed and the floor. It was a metaphor for the disease. “I like the notion of that phrase from the New Testament: ‘now I see through a glass darkly.’ It just resonated metaphorically to me, that shattering of SAQA Art Quilt Collector | 27
Lament on a wide expanse of plain The morning of a bad day sadness seems to reach to the horizon and beyond. No soft rise or hill or mesa or butte can dam it. It fills every rut, every gully, it spreads over rocks around fenceposts under brush and leaves and purposefully, like a spring flood rising, it flattens every surface feature from here to the ends of the earth. No forecast can say when it will retreat and puddle and leave dry ground enough that flowers might sprout again then bloom. It just sits here formless, stagnant, gray, resolute. There’s no plug to pull to drain it. It reflects a sullen sky and resists any natural tendency to evaporate. — Michael James, 2015
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Lament on a wide expanse of plain ©Michael James
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2014
the glass, the shattering of the cocoon of well being of our entire lives, pretty much to that point, and knowing from this point on, things would never be the same.” That quilt was made in October 2013 — “I hit it with that one,” James said. The other 13 quilts flowed from it, many of them including imagery that James associates with his and Judy’s post-diagnosis lives. “The dots represent the schizophrenia of the day to day, trying to juggle all kinds of things,” he said. “Between being employed full time and being a full-time care provider and managing that, you just feel overwhelmed most of the time. Most caregivers would agree with that. You don’t ever feel you get enough help when you’re living with someone with the diagnosis.” One of the repeating motifs in the quilts are dark black marks that drive
through and divide a panel. Those marks were drawn onto a digital tablet into Photoshop, manipulated with varying sizes and color value, printed, cut, and sewn into the quilts. “Those are probably the most literal referents to the physiology of the disease,” James said. “I was thinking of all the synapses that, with the disease, slowly stop functioning.” Even the Sandhill cranes incorporated into The Long Flight: Sanctuary, a quilt he did for an Atlanta group show titled Flight Patterns, have a personal connection. “In that piece, which I did in 2013, the cranes — I was thinking about us and our marriage,” James said. “We’ve been married for 43 years. The cranes symbolize longevity. They mate for life, I’ve been told. I like the whole thing where they come back to the same place
over millennia. There’s a commitment there, a geographical commitment, but a commitment like we have.” Those interpretations, however, are possible only by knowing the story behind the imagery. The work can easily be seen in other ways. In her essay in the exhibition’s catalog Janet Koplos, a former Art in America editor, examines the works’ motifs — dots, lines, panels, and leaves — and analyzes its connections to music, poetry, and landscape. The quilts can also be seen as continuing the contrasts that have long been seen in James’ work — the hard-edged geometry of the rectangles against the organic dot shapes and grass-like marks, the abstraction of passages of black and white marks against the leaves and flying birds and the soft colors of the skies against the heavier, darker passages in an adjoining rectangle. Those contrasts and the thoughts they provoke seem endless, an intellectual aspect of work that also evokes emotion and is, in a complex, challenging manner, beautiful. “It’s abstract art,” James said. “That’s one of the elemental things about my work. It’s focused on abstraction and how abstract imagery can be a kind of touchstone to the metaphysical world. There are references to the physical world. But a lot of those are locating things
The Long Flight: Sanctuary ©Michael James
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that relate to the interior, to the emotion, and the intellect. “What I’ve most enjoyed about this body of work is that I’ve done it, honestly and truly, with little regard for the pulses of the contemporary art world and little consideration of that world. I did these pieces for me and for those close to me as a way of expressing the experience and putting it in a context. What the viewer brings to it will be something different. I’m not intending to bring one reading to it at all.” Those interpretations, whether views of the origins of imagery or critical evaluations, are a somewhat, removed way of looking at the quilts. James, initially, also saw the work on a more intimate, personal level. “When I looked at each of the pieces on the wall of my studio as they were coming together, each one seemed to be a positive affirmation of a negative experience,” he said. “That old saw, when life throws you lemons, make lemonade. That’s what these are, the lemonade. “There’s nothing about the pieces I’d call upbeat. But they’re not supposed to be. They’re capturing my state of mind at that time. They’re a kind of therapy, and I have been seeing a therapist, which has been worth much more than I’ve paid for it.” After Judy’s diagnosis, James began to write poetry, often late at night when anxiety made it hard for him to sleep. One of the poems, Lament on a wide expanse of plain is included in the exhibition on the wall next to a quilt of the same title. During a two-hour-plus conversa tion, James read two more poems, above left: Aubade (playing for time) left: Aubade (mourning song)
© Michael James 30 | SAQA Art Quilt Collector
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including “Our Own Private Downton,” which uses characters from the PBS series Downton Abbey to look at his and Judy’s lives. James didn’t make it all the way to the end of the poem, choking up in its final stanzas. “My emotions are close to the surface; it doesn’t take much to set me off,” he said. “One thing about Alzheimer’s is the grieving goes on for years at least for those close to the process. It becomes a state of affairs.” “For me, the whole process has been an education about mortality, about the mortality of the people close to me and my own, and about the disease, dementia and Alzheimer’s. It’s certainly not what I anticipated at this stage of my life. But there has been value in it I’d say, and I’ve appreciated it. That sounds weird, but I’ve learned so much from it.” The 14 new quilts also continue James’ exploration of digital printing of the fabric used in the quilt top. There are, however, in a subtly provocative move, some hand-painted fabrics incorporated into a few of the quilts. “In the fine craft world and in the textile art world, there’s an unspoken bias against the words ‘electronic’ and ‘digital,’” said James, who has focused on digital textile printing for the last
13 years. “In some people’s minds, it’s quick and easy and lacking substance. Nothing could be further from the truth. “I got tired of the occasional insinuation of that. I had some hand-painted fabrics I’d done years before and decided to use that stock in some of the pieces. ... I almost defy anybody to find the pigmented fabrics versus the digitally dyed fabrics.” The quilts of Ambiguity & Enigma are, unquestionably, a connected body of work. Their variations becoming explorations of shared emotions, visual themes, and techniques. That’s, in part, the result of their relatively rapid creation. “It’s been a very intense year and a half, 14 pieces,” James said. “I usually make seven pieces a year. It’s been that way for 40 years. I couldn’t have done it without Leah Sorensen Hayes. She does all the quilting. She binds them, puts the sleeves on for handing. All that is the handwork that is extremely time consuming. I don’t have time to do that.” Ambiguity & Enigma is James’ first solo show at the Quilt House and his first Lincoln solo show since a pair of Modern Arts Midwest exhibitions in 2008 and 2010.
It is also his best, most powerful exhibition this writer has seen either in person or digital reproduction, a judgment with which James concurs. “I love being surrounded by this work,” he said during the conversation in the gallery. “I’m very proud of this work. I think it’s the strongest body of work I’ve done to date. There’s a rightness and a kind of perfection in these pieces I’ve not achieved before. If it turns out to be a kind of coda, that’s fine.” It will likely be years before James has another solo show here. With the completion of Ambiguity & Enigma he is intentionally slowing down his quiltmaking to devote his time and energy to Judy, who now resides in a memory care community. “Right now, I’m going to focus on her for the near time, and I’m going to continue to write,” he said. “I’ll get back to fabric. I don’t know when, but I’ll get pulled back. The pull is always there.” Editor’s note: We were saddened to hear of the passing of Judith (Judy) James in August after a long and productive career of sewing, teaching, and art making. Her richly patterned and textured fabric constructions, which explored the ways in which human industry marked and altered the topographies of the wide central U.S., were widely exhibited both in the U.S. and abroad. We will miss her.
Ambiguity & Enigma: Recent Quilts by Michael James on display at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at Quilt House in Lincoln, Nebraska. ©Michael James Photo by Larry Gawel
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t h e co l l e ctor ’s b o o k s h e lf And Still We Rise: Race, Culture and Visual Conversations by Carolyn L. Mazloomi (Schiffer, 2015; ISBN 978-0764349287)
Reviewed by Martha Sielman
Carolyn Mazloomi is among the most influential historians of African- American quilts in the United States. Founder of the Women of Color Quilters Network, she recently was the recipient of the 2014 Bess Lomax Hawes NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award. Dr. Mazloomi has organized countless exhibitions of contemporary
ciates, Inc. Quilt Asso Studio Art
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Portfolio
The art quilt
sourcebook
quilts. This catalog of her most recent endeavor is fabulous. Wishing to tell the history of African Americans in the United States through art quilts, she invited 69 contemporary artists to choose a historical topic and create an original artwork commemorating an event or individual. Many of the artists chose to make two pieces, for a total of 97 original artworks. Each full-page image of artwork is accompanied by a lengthy artist statement describing the historical event and giving fascinating insights into the artist’s creative process. Two detail images allow for closer examination.
Be inspired. Be motivated. Be prepared to be captivated. This beautiful full-color volume is available now. Go to saqa.com to order Portfolio 22, the art quilt sourcebook. 192
Portfolio 22 | Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.
Mary Ruth Smith
44 x 40 inches (112 x 102 cm) | 2014
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figurative
photo by Sondra Brady
Waco, Texas, USA 254-296-9495 | mary_ruth_smith@baylor.edu | www.maryruthsmith.com
photo by Kerby C. Smith
Coarsegold, California, USA 559-683-3060 | lura@lura-art.com | www.lura-art.com
Granite Series: Moonlit Waters
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Portfolio 22 | Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.
Lura Schwarz Smith
conceptual
Portrait Series: Hamburger 15 x 11 inches (38 x 28 cm) | 2015
I found the catalog fascinating. There are so many black history milestones and important people that I was never taught about in school, such as Lucy Terry Prince, Frances Ellen Watkins, the Lovings, and Robert Small. I learned a lot of history just by reading through And Still We Rise. However, the real reason to own this book is the art. My favorite work may be the first piece: 20 and Odd by Carolyn Crump of Houston. The image is incredibly powerful. She has fashioned the ship’s hull (carrying some the first enslaved Africans to America) out of the bodies of the victims. Turn the page
and the next piece by Valerie Poitier of Natick, Massachusetts, shows the bodies of African-American slaves visually morphing into the stockade walls that they helped to build, another memorable image. A truly unique and imaginative art treatment is the piece by April Thomas Schipp of Rochester Hills in Michigan. She has depicted Harriet Beecher Stowe using a dimensional depiction of her period dress. The head and bodice of the portrait are exploding with ideas and images from her seminal novel: Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Michael Cummings from New York has two wonderful
portraits in the book: one portraying Harriet Tubman leading her family to freedom and the other of Mae C. Jemison, the first African-American woman astronaut. The exhibition of And Still We Rise is touring. It premiered at National Cincinnati Museum Center and Underground Railroad Freedom Center, in Cincinnati, Ohio (www.cincymuseum. org/traveling-exhibits/and-still-werise). Whether you are interested in history or just love seeing great art, this is a must-have addition to your library.
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SAQA Exhibition
Two by Twenty Two by Twenty is two exhibits in one. The first is a pairing of two art quilts by the same artist. Some are variations on a theme. With the same technique and subject matter, the artists explore subtle variations in line, color or texture to fully understand the material. Some pairs have a narrative element between them. The time of day has changed, or the viewpoint has shifted. These little differences invite the viewer to engage with the work in a kind of “first — then,” or “spot the differences” game. The second exhibit is the variety overall amongst all the artists. The pieces as a whole demonstrate the wide range of approaches in the quilt art genre. From bold and graphic to subtle explorations of texture and nuance, this intriguing collection challenges the imagination.
Teresa Barkley left: The Triangle, 36 x 36 inches | right: A Grand Centennial, 36 x 33 inches 34 | SAQA Art Quilt Collector
photo by Jean Vong
photo by D. James Dee
Marjan Kluepfel left: Forest Fancy, 37 x 25 inches | right : Forest Fire, 37 x 25 inches
photos by Ran Erde
Sandra Townsend Donabed left: Tune In Turn On Drop Cloth 2, 29 x 29 inches | right: Tune In Turn On Drop Cloth 5, 29 x 29 inches
Simona Peled left: Tactile Architecture, 37 x 29 inches | right: Planning, 37 x 24 inches SAQA Art Quilt Collector | 35
Photo Finish
photo by Joseph Coscia Jr.
Terrie Hancock Mangat Water 122 x 98 inches, 2010 John M. Walsh III Collection of Contemporary Art Quilts
