The Art Quilt Gallery NYC

The first art quilt gallery in New York City

by Cathy Izzo

As the owner of a quilt shop for the past 20 years, I have been to the Houston Quilt Market many times. It’s the place to find out what’s new, what’s trending, meet other store owners, and gather general knowledge of the quilting world. However, what kept me going over and over again were the quilts.

Quilts, Inc., the sponsor of Quilt Market, exhibits more than 1000 of the most beautiful quilts in the world in any given year, and I could never spend enough time looking at them. Year after year, I would go to Houston and look at these magnificent quilts. I realized that outside of the quilting community, relatively few people knew about this amazing art form.

Because our store, The City Quilter, was located in the heart of Manhattan, it always seemed to me that we would have a built-in audience and maybe even a market for these incredible works of art. However, opening a gallery always seemed like too big a leap and running the shop was more than a full-time job. Then the store next door to ours became vacant, and our landlord, wanting to fill it quickly and easily, approached us with a pretty good deal.

We had expanded once already, so we were not really thinking of getting more space, but we decided to take advantage of an offer that would not come again. We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, but I knew that I wanted to try to bring art quilts to New York City. Suddenly the possibility of opening a gallery became real and quite exciting.

During the next six months, we not only planned the store addition, but also constructed a gallery and made many decisions about things like hanging sys-

tems, lighting, signage, contracts, shipping, insurance, and, most importantly, artists.

Judy Doenias, a longtime teacher at the City Quilter, is a good friend and wonderful mentor. She became my co-curator, and with her invaluable help, The Art Quilt Gallery•NYC was born in March of 2011. We decided that each exhibit would focus on a single artist and last six weeks. Over the next four years we exhibited 21 artists. We went out of our way to have a good balance of established artists and emerging talent. It was important to us that we represent quilters from all over the world. Of 21 artists, three were from Europe, one from Japan, and one from Israel.

Since we wanted the New York art world to take notice of our gallery, we knew we had to exhibit world-class quilts. Some decisions were easy. Judy and I turned to quilters whose work we had loved for years, like Velda Newman, Michael Cummings, and Sue Benner. Judy and I also scoured websites, books, and quilt exhibits for lesser known artists whose work spoke to us, moved us, and made us want to shout: look at this! Other criteria were impeccable workmanship and originality, but most of all, the quilts needed the ability to make us feel something, which all good art is supposed to do. After a few months, word of the gallery spread and people began submitting work to us.

After each exhibit ended, we made a book containing every piece that we hung for each artist and used these as a marketing device. In our contract with the artists, we had a one-year window to sell any work that had been in the exhibit, and the books became useful tools for that. This approach gave us a chance to recoup some money after the exhibition ended.

Over the almost four years that the Art Quilt Gallery was in operation, we sold 17 pieces, ranging from $450 for a small piece to a high of $8,100. The average price was about $3,200. We sold two quilts in the $8,000 range, one from a established quilter that went to a buyer with a well-known collection. The other quilt came from a relatively little known quilter and went into a private home. Both works depicted nature, were fairly large, and were exquisite.

We really didn’t see a correlation between the prominence of the artist and buying patterns. People

(left to right): Dale Riehl, Sue Benner, and Cathy Izzo in front of Benner’s Display II during her opening at the gallery

bought what they loved. Our sales record wasn’t terrible but it certainly wasn’t enough to keep a gallery in business.In December 2014, we regretfully closed the Art Quilt Gallery. The revenue didn’t begin to justify the space.

I think the importance of art quilts will only continue to grow. More artists than ever are making quilts, and slowly, word is spreading about the infinite variety, the incredible workmanship, and the unbounded creativity of these artists and their creations.

I do think The Art Quilt Gallery was about ten years ahead of its time, and I have no doubt that someone will try to resurrect the idea of a gallery devoted solely to quilt art. Until then, just know that The Art Quilt Gallery•NYC still exists online (artquiltgallerynyc.com), available to everyone with a computer and a wish to experience the joy of this art form.

Paula Chung’s solo exhibition