Displaying items by tag: quilting

How would a guy make a quilt?" Joel Otterson asked himself when he began his foray into the craft. "He would make it out of concrete and stone," he answered. And so he did.

Otterson's "quilts" consist of interlinking blocks of concrete, stone and ceramics that are meant to be walked and danced on rather than slept under. One is 19 by 22 feet and made from six tons of concrete and 500 dinner plates cut into 4,000 pieces. There's even a "crazy quilt" made from the scraps of his concrete projects.

Otterson is one of eight artists involved in "Man-Made: Contemporary Male Quilters," opening Jan. 25 at the Craft & Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles and curated by CAFAM Executive Director Suzanne Isken.

The Brooklyn Museum, which holds a celebrated decorative arts collection, is currently presenting a selection of rarely seen American and European quilts. In fact, only one of the 30-plus quilts on display has been on public view in the past 30 years.

The exhibition titled Workt by Hand: Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts aims to explore the impact of feminist scholarship on the ways in which historical quilts have been and are currently viewed, contextualized, and interpreted. The exhibition goes beyond the connection of quilting to feminism and explores the medium of quilting as an art form and as an aspect of material culture with meaningful social and political undertones.

The quilts on view at the Brooklyn Museum span two centuries and feature iconic designs and techniques including the log cabin style, the Amish sunshine and shadow style, and crazy quilts, which were fashionable during the late 19^th century. A quilt by Mary A. Stinson that is considered one of finest examples of a crazy quilt is included in Workt by Hand.

Workt by Hand aims to shed light on the skill, craftsmanship, thought, and energy that went into quilting; something that was frequently overlooked in a male-dominated society. The exhibition, which is on view through September 15, 2013, includes photographs, newspaper clippings, sample pieces of quilts, and other ephemera relating to the history of quilts.

Beyond the Bed: The American Quilt Evolution, which is on view at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York, traces the evolution of the North American quilt from the early 19^th century to the present day. The exhibition is guest curated by Jean M. Burke of Vermont’s Shelburne Museum and explores how the form, fashion and, function of quilts have changed over the centuries.

Beyond the Bed presents a wide variety of objects from bed coverings, wall decorations, and clothing to three-dimensional sculptures and furniture accessories. While, some of the quilts on view are traditional in pattern and construction, others are more progressive.

Highlights include a rare pincushion quilt attributed to a member of the Vanderbilt family; Ella B. Chase’s (unknown-1919) Pickwick Papers Crazy Quilt depicting characters from Charles Dickens’ Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club; a tromp l’oeil quilt carved by Fraser Smith (b. 1971) from a 200-pound block of wood; and a free-standing quilted sculpture by Dominique Ehrmann.

Beyond the Bed: The American Quilt Evolution will be on view through June 16, 2013.