focus on commissions
An even exchange: art for space by Patricia Malarcher
I
n the mid-1980s I found my dream studio — a classroom in a vacated Catholic school with about 800 square feet of floor space, a wall of windows facing north, a large closet, a long wall for pinning up work, and a blackboard for sketching. The size of the room allowed the scale of my work to expand and easily accommodated several projects at once. But then I received a Renwick Fellowship, a research grant that would require me to spend most of a year in Washington, D.C. How could I keep my studio when I couldn’t afford monthly rent for space I wouldn’t be using? The school was part of a complex of granite buildings, including a church, on the property of St. Cecilia’s Parish in Englewood, New Jersey. The church, an early 20th-century version of French Romanesque
8 | SAQA Art Quilt Collector
architecture that had received recognition from the local historical society, had been newly painted in a subtle range of warm grayish greens. Along a side aisle, a niche with a sage-colored wall housed a marble and bronze tabernacle (a container of Eucharistic bread), its pedestal constructed of off-white marble. It struck me that this setting could be enhanced with a textile hanging designed to complement the interior architecture. I had been creating art quilts in geometric patterns with metallized Mylar as a dominant material, and felt this approach was adaptable to such a project. Father Joseph O’Brien, the pastor, was receptive to the idea and agreed on a barter: I would create an art piece to cover my rent.
