Denver Arts - Stitches in Time - Page 2 12/8/09 2:37 PM

Denver Arts - Stitches in Time - page 2 12/8/09 2:37 PM

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Stitches in Time Related Stories ... Advanced Archive Search >> Sketches Continued from page 1 Share March 30, 2006

Published on August 30, 2001 Sketches February 9, 2006 RESTAURANTS Next to "Sister's Choice" is "My Mother Taught Me to Sew," by Western Expansion Challengers VIEW AD | VIEW SITE Faye Anderson, from 1988. It's a richly detailed quilt that's a April 11, 1996 technical tour de force -- it is made up of 99 individual Sketches More >> January 26, 2006 appliquéd panels framed by a border of undulating lines. Anderson, a Boulder quilter, uses fifty different patterns of Fortunate Son September 18, 1997 hearts, hands, flowers and baskets. As indicated by the title, this quilt salutes her mother, but it's also meant to refer to an 1870 quilt that Anderson found inspiring.

Around the corner in a small niche is a subtly elegant quilt hanging behind a protective panel, "Tumbling Blocks Autograph Quilt," done around 1880 by Emma Schoefield Wright. An established artist, Wright was the wealthy daughter of a Burlington Northern railroad executive who began collecting autographs of notables of "Tobacco Flag Quilt," by Carrie the day, including presidents Grant Most Popular Shirley, flannel on sateen. Viewed Commented Emailed and Arthur, as well as radicals and Where: Colorado politicos have all gone to pot! Colorado History Museum, suffragists. She would have the Can a mild-mannered bakery clerk solve the 1300 Broadway dignitaries sign an individual block grocery workers' labor strife? Details: of fabric before she sewed it into Fixers, feeders, and the strange, hidden Through February 24, 303- the quilt. Around the autograph world of feral cats 866-3682 blocks is a border that's The charges are building against disgraced Preserving Patterns: The embellished by Wright's paintings developer Erik Osborn Quilts of Charlotte Jane There's a water war on the Colorado- of flowers, buildings and still-life Whitehill Wyoming border, and Aaron Million is quick Through December 9 scenes. Wright's quilt is one of the on the draw Denver Art Museum, 100 finest things in the show. West 14th Avenue Parkway 720-865-5003 Recent Blog Posts Also very good is Carrie Shirley's Read the latest draft of Senator Chris Subject(s): 1917 "Tobacco Flag Quilt," in which Romer's proposed medical marijuana bill Quiltspeak: Stories in Tue Dec 8, 3:10 PM Stitches the flags of the world are printed on flannel and attached to a red sateen Denver Parks and Rec fees to increase in 2010, so take the plunge right away backing. The flannel flags were a cigarette premium at the Tue Dec 8, 2:55 PM time. The corner of each flag block is tied with a matching red Q&A with Shawn Christensen of Stellastarr* Tue Dec 8, 3:03 PM thread. Zahller points out the ingenuity this quilt http://www.westword.com/2001-08-30/culture/stitches-in-time/2 Page 1 of 3 Denver Arts - Stitches in Time - page 2 12/8/09 2:37 PM

Tue Dec 8, 3:03 PM thread. Zahller points out the ingenuity this quilt Q&A with Ten Out of Tennesee's Andrew demonstrates, with Shirley using material that was readily Belle available to her. This thrifty recycling is a key feature of quilt- Tue Dec 8, 2:30 PM Gastro Gift Guide: Kitchen Gadget edition making, because quilts are put together out of scraps of cloth Tue Dec 8, 3:06 PM that would otherwise be discarded. Root for your home team at these BCS Championship game bars One of the strangest quilts in the show is "It's a Pond's Life," Tue Dec 8, 2:01 PM Avalanche Terrain: Tonight at REI, learn Now Click This by Kathy Emmel, with help from her fifth grade class at how to not die in an avalanche Arvada's Weber Elementary. Emmel, an accomplished quilter, Tue Dec 8, 9:38 AM Follow us on Twitter Classic Climb: The Rigid Designator Checkoutmyink.com used a field trip to Meadowglow Pond as the starting point for Tue Dec 8, 9:35 AM Wolfgangsvault.com Urbanspoon.com this very high-tech quilt. Emmel had the students use Westword's Online computers, iron-on fabric with fusible webbing, and automatic National Features Jobfair Westword SMS: Get it embroidery machines to lay out the pond and its teeming life on your phone! forms and to put each of the student-artists' heads (on insect Seattle Weekly Digital Jukebox Buddy Count Be a fan of Westword bodies, no less) onto the border of the quilt, using photocopy Those looking for answers to Nidal Malik Hasan's Ft. Hood on Facebook transfers on fabric. massacre might find them in the case of Iraq war killer John LikeMe.net M. Russell. Westword's Ad Index By Rick Anderson Among the many other fine pieces is the enchanting Phoenix New Times "Cathedral Windows," by Daisy Ortega, done in the 1960s. It's "The King of the Pickers" In the age of Ebay, it's getting damn hard to find a good a coverlet in which colored diamond shapes are framed in garage-sale Picasso. Free Classifieds Denver, CO By Robrt L. Pela buy, sell, trade (3,274) white. musician (540) Houston Press Take This Debt and Shove It rentals (4,069) The show ends with a room full of quilts, including one that Overwhelmed by credit-card bills? Ex-con and recovering jobs (1,005) crack addict Bob Lindsey has a proposition for you. adult entertainment (6,518) has been laid out on a bed, reminding us that quilts are meant By Craig Malisow to be bed coverings and not to be hung on walls like paintings. SF Weekly Motel Hell In a city known for coddling slumlords, it took a "purple Just a block west, in the DAM's Neusteter Textile Gallery is a person" to implement health and safety policies that an army of bureaucrats wouldn't. very different kind of exhibit, Preserving Patterns: The Quilts By Ashley Harrell of Charlotte Jane Whitehill, put together by Alice Zrebiec, the museum's textile curator.

Whitehill, who had dabbled in quilt-making since childhood, began to pursue the art seriously in 1929 while living in Emporia, Kansas, at the time a national quilt-making center. In 1940, she moved to Denver, where she continued her art. She donated nearly twenty of her quilts to the DAM in 1955; she died in 1964, at the age of 99. Since then, Whitehill's quilts have rarely been exhibited. The current show is said to be a response to repeated requests by the public to see the quilts, which are legendary in local quilt circles.

Whitehill sometimes designed her own quilts, but she usually modeled them on earlier works by other quilters, which is why the show is called Preserving Patterns. A good example is "Autumn Leaf," from 1934, which Whitehill based on a quilt done for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The cotton quilt, done in yellows and greens on a white field, features leaf, twig and geometric shapes, and has an incredible zigzag trim around the edges.

"Oriental Poppy," from 1936, was also inspired by Chicago's history and is based on a fragment of a quilt that was salvaged after the Chicago Fire. In this quilt, blocks are decorated by a conventionalized floral form with an element in the center and four radiating arms.

One of the most beautiful quilts -- though all of the Whitehills are breathtaking in their simplicity and refinement -- is "Album Quilt in the Lennartson Family Pattern," done in 1945. It sports a variety of motifs, including grapevines, a pinwheel of tulips and a four-pointed star of daisies. The forms are all abstracted and done in pieces of red, pink, orange and purple fabric, both printed with patterns and plain. As with all the quilts in this show, the background field is white.

Another dazzling quilt is "Indiana Wreath," one of the most complicated patterns in this group. Medallions are formed from urns filled with grapes and flowers surrounded by a floral and grape wreath.

http://www.westword.com/2001-08-30/culture/stitches-in-time/2 Page 2 of 3 Denver Arts - Stitches in Time - page 2 12/8/09 2:37 PM

Preserving Patterns is the perfect followup to Quiltspeak, and considering their shared topic and the short walk between the two museums, they'd be the perfect things to see on some chilly day in the very near future.

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