EWING CHANGE: Masters of Modern Quiltmaking

Proposal for Traveling Exhibition EWING CHANGE: Masters of Modern Quiltmaking Curated by Robert Shaw S Author of American Quilts: The Democratic Art 1780-2007, The Art Quilt, and Quilts: A Living Tradition. Former curator of The Shelburne Museum and International Quilt Festival/Houston

Terese Agnew at work on Portrait of a Textileworker, which is made entirely from designer garment labels The Museum of Arts & Design, New York

Robert Shaw 802/985-0737 . [email protected] www.artofthequilt.com 2

NEO Buddha (detail), Susan Shie, Wooster, Ohio, 2005. The John M. Walsh Collection of Contemporary Art Quilts

SEWING CHANGE: MASTERS OF MODERN QUILTMAKING Once nearly moribund, quiltmaking has exploded over the past forty years and is now a worldwide grassroots phenomenon of unprecedented proportions. Quilts are currently being made by millions of people in dozens of countries on all six inhabited continents. In addition to the US, major quiltmaking countries include Japan (where more than five million people are making quilts and 259,000 people recently attended a weeklong quilt festival where I curated an exhibition), France, Great Britain, Sweden, Canada, and Australia. More than 27 million men and women in the US alone are involved in quiltmaking and spend more than $3,000,000,000 a year on fabric, sewing machines, thread, scissors, rulers, and other supplies.

Quiltmaking is also at a creative peak. In the past forty years, many academically trained studio artists have taken up the quilt medium and are pushing the envelope of the 3 quilt’s meaning, content and form in remarkable ways. At the same time, many extraordinary quilts are being made by men and women working with traditional piecework and appliqué forms and methods and finding diverse ways to make them fresh.

Despite all this activity and interest, there has never been an exhibition that covers the immense changes and wonderful art created by quiltmakers over the past 40 odd years. Sewing Change will trace the history of the Great Quilt Revival that began in the 1960s and continues to this day and profile the work and approaches of leading studio art quilters and traditionally oriented masters. The exhibition will sort through the huge number of quilts that are currently being produced and highlight the best of the best in contemporary quiltmaking, including work by such widely recognized masters as Jinny Beyer, Pauline Burbidge, Nancy Crow, Michael James, Jean Ray Laury, Betty Suiter, Anna Williams, and Zena Thorpe. It will provide a deep study of modern quilts and quiltmakers, based on my critically acclaimed books, American Quilts: The Democratic Art 1780-2007, The Art Quilt, and Quilts: A Living Tradition.

The exhibition would include 40 quilts. It would draw primarily from artists and private collectors, but might also include works from the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, the National Quilt Museum, and the New England Quilt Museum.

About the Curator Robert Shaw is an independent curator and art historian who has written and lectured extensively on quilts and other American folk arts. His 1997 book The Art Quilt was the first comprehensive treatment of the subject, and his upcoming American Quilts: The Democratic Art 1780-2007 is the first comprehensive study of the history and art of American quilts and quiltmaking. His other critically acclaimed books include Quilts: A Living Tradition, America's Traditional Crafts, and Hawaiian Quilt Masterpieces.

Fiber Arts, Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine, and other periodicals.

Constructions #84 by Nancy Crow. 2007. Collection of the artist.

SEWING CHANGE: MASTERS OF MODERN QUILTMAKING 40 quilts, approx. 480 running feet Curatorial fee=$7,500 plus expenses (includes lecture by Robert Shaw) Museum loan fees, shipping approx. $5000to be determined, depending on quilts selected for exhibition and points of origin and return. Insurance not included, wall-to-wall insurance to be carried by the host venue.

Alphabet Soup by M. Joan Lintault, 2003. Collection of the artist. 6

Kells Quilt, Zena Thorpe, Chatsworth, California, 2003. The Quilts Inc. Corporate Collection.

Windows, Jinny Beyer, Alexandria, Virginia, 2002. Collection of the artist.

Felis Forever I, Nancy Erickson, Billings, Montana, 2003. Private collection. 8

. Coral, Pollen, Pearls, Rachel Brumer, Seattle, Washington, 1995. Collection of the artist.

Aged: Covered by Wisdom, Kyoung-Ae Cho, Madison, Wisconsin, 1999. The John M. Walsh Collection of Contemporary Art Quilts.

Caribbean Blues, Paula Nadelstern, New York, New York, 1996. Collection of the artist.

Natural Selection, Michael James, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2006. Collection of the artist. Pieced from fabric designed and digitally printed by the artist.

The Slave Ship Henrietta, Michael Cummings, New York, New York, 2007. Collection of the artist.

Houses, Katie Mae Pettway, Gee’s Bend, Alabama, 2000. Private collection.

Japanese Garden, Charlotte Yde, Denmark, 2001. Collection of the artist.

Watermark, Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade, Boothbay Harbor, Maine, 2001. Private collection. Whole cloth quilt, hand painted and silk-screened with fiber-reactive dyes. 12

Scarlet Serenade, Sharon Schamber, Payson, Arizona, 2005. Collection of the artist.

Tentative List of Artists • Terese Agnew (sculptor, pictorial quilts subtly addressing environmental and social issues) • Mary Lou Bendolph (African-American from Gee’s Bend, Alabama) • Jinny Beyer (reigning master of hand quilting and traditional pieced design) • Rachel Brumer (powerful, enigmatic pictorial images, often on Jewish themes) • Pauline Burbidge (UK, collaged and stitched works inspired by nature and landscape) • Dorothy Caldwell (Canadian artist who works with Japanese shibori dyeing) ]• Kyoung-Ae Cho (Korean-American who works with wood and other natural materials, teaches at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) • Jane Burch Cochran (painter and embellisher who incorporates old dresses and gloves into her pictorial quilts) • Nancy Crow (trendsetter now dyeing own cloth and cutting designs free hand) 13

• Michael Cummings (African-American who makes figural quilts on African and African-American themes) • Joe Cunningham (master hand quilter who makes quirky pieced quilts) • Radka Donnell (Switzerland, academically trained painter and pioneer quilt artist) • Nancy Erickson (painter who creates wry and powerful studies of animal/human relationships) • Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade (painters and screen printers now incorporating digital images into their whole cloth quilts) • Diane Gaudynski (master of traditional piecework and machine sewing) • Nancy Halpern (hand sewn pieced quilts, often on architectural themes) • Michael James (leading studio artist now creating his own digitally printed cloth and teaching at the University of Nebraska) • John Lefelhocz (conceptual pieces made from non-traditional materials) • M. Joan Lintault (pioneer artist who creates self-contained natural worlds) • Emiko Toda Loeb (Japanese-American, unique double-sided Log Cabin quilts) • Terrie Hancock Mangat (pioneering master of pictorial quilts with over-the-top embellishment) • Therese May (childlike dream images embellished with beads and buttons) • Ruth McDowell (pieced pictorial nature scenes) • Jan Myers-Newbury (shibori dyeing) • Paula Nadelstern (images inspired by kaleidoscopes and snowflakes) • Rise Nagin (quilts and kimono with layered translucent materials) • Ellen Oppenheimer (screen printing complex patterns on whole cloth) • Amy Orr (conceptual versions of traditional patterns using industrial materials) • Katie Mae Pettway (African-American from Gee’s Bend, Alabama) • Arturo Alonzo Sandoval (uses industrial and synthetic materials, teaches at University of Kentucky) • Jane Sassaman (stylized graphic images) • Lynne Setterington (UK, hand sewn quilts with subtle contemporary imagery) • Sharon Schamber (Original designs in traditional formats) • Joan Schulze (printmaker and poet who chronicles her travels in collages) 14

• Susan Shie (Quirky and obsessively detailed painted and quilted diary quilts) • Ted Storm von Veeldon (Netherlands, master of traditional appliqué) • Betty Suiter (extraordinary appliqués imitating complex rug designs) • Zena Thorpe (UK born, pictorial appliqué on British themes) • Anna Williams (highly influential African-American improviser) • Charlotte Yde (Denmark, subtle pieced quilts with pictorial quilting)