Local quilts get shows of their own
ROSEMARY PONNEKANTI; The News Tribune
Gee’s Bend quilts might be famous, but Washington has a long history of traditional quilting also, and a raft of contemporary art quilters creating their own styles. Concurrent with the Gee’s Bend exhibit are a pair of quilt exhibits at the Washington State History Museum, exploring the past and present of local quilting.
“These quilts are exquisite and really diverse,” said Paula McArdle, director of education and public programs at Tacoma Art Museum. McArdle is also a textile conservation specialist and part of the jury for “Evolution of the Art Quilt,” the history museum’s contemporary quilt show. The exhibit was developed in partnership with the Contemporary QuiltArt Association (CQA) and features 28 quilts by 25 regional artists.
Local quilt artists lack significant gallery play, aside from an annual show at the American Art Company downtown. Nevertheless they’re out there, and exhibition artists such as Jo Van Patten and Lorraine Edmond hand-dyeing and screen printing their own fabric, or Barbara Steen and Barbara Nepom printing text and digital photographs on their nature quilts, are worth looking at.
Unlike the Gee’s Bend quilts, which marry traditional techniques and materials with contemporary, abstract design, local quilt art can involve techniques like photo transfer, collage and beading.
“Quilt art continues to evolve with each artist’s contributions. With some history behind us, it is possible to see the influences that are shaping the stages of the art as it matures,” said Colleen Wise, co-chair for the CQA exhibits committee.
Pairing with “Evolution of the Art Quilt” is “Washington’s Historic Quilts,” which takes a look at the quilt traditions of Washington. The exhibit shows 11 quilts from the collection of the Washington Historical Society, ranging from an 1848 pioneer quilt of wool, velvet and metal buttons to one made to commemorate the women’s Olympic marathon time trials held in Olympia in the 1980s.
Yet another thread of the local quilting story will be taken up by the Tacoma Art Museum in an exhibition following “Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt.”
“Threads That Bind: Works by Pacific Northwest African American Quilters,” curated by TAM’s curatorial director Rock Hushka, will open in December. The 30 quilts by local black quilters show, that locally, there’s no one style.
“Each quiltmaker has a radically different voice,” said Hushka. “Unlike Gee’s Bend, where quilters are pulling from a fairly insular tradition, Northwest quilters originally come from all parts of the states, and are using quiltmaking to build both the community of artists and their relationships with friends. If there’s one unifying element, it’s the use of deep, saturated color.”
