Friday Fibers Roundup: Story Quilts

November 9, 2018

From galleries to runways, theory to hobby, and everywhere in-between, quilts have seen a huge rise in the everyday lexicon. This Friday Fibers Roundup features a great variety of what people are doing with the concept of quilting.

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1) Sonja Dahl’s latest solo exhibition Recounting Fragments is on display now (until the end of November) at Joan Truckenbrod Pop-up Gallery in Corvallis, Oregon. These works use semiotically-charged materials such as salt, cotton cloth, thread, and Pendleton woolen fabrics in tandem with migration-themed motifs and techniques derived from patchwork and whitework quilting to interrogate the incomplete stories surrounding Oregon’s settlement.

2) “Can You Copyright a Quilt?” by Alexandra Marvar examines how, long after their iconic American quilts caught the art world’s attention, the Gee’s Bend artisans are taking control of their legacy (via The Nation).

3) “Migrant Quilt Project Brings Border Tragedies to the Surface, Stitch by Stitch” by Mark Pratt looks at the powerful exhibition of quilts memorializing migrants from Mexico and Central America who have died in the southern Arizona desert in the last 20 years is on display amid intense national debate over immigration policy (via LA Times).

4) “Recharting America’s Origin Story Through Quilts” by Maura Callahan features Stephen Towns’ exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art honors black women and Nat Turner, meditates on labor, and makes room for nuance in debates on depictions of historical violence (via Hyperallergic).

5) This video shows NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg explaining how to quilt in space.

6) “The Alabama Women Who Made Their Quilts a Part of Modern Art” by Ryan Leahey spotlights the iconic and influential works of Gee’s Bend quilters (via Artsy).

7) “This Old Thing? Quilts Hit the Catwalk” by Max Berlinger looks at how the blanket, once a fixture of dusty antiques shops and flea markets, is now sold on Madison Avenue and in Paris boutiques (via The New York Times).

8) “The West Philly Woman Who Transforms Songs Into Quilts” by Victor Fiorillo features the work of Eliza Hardy Jones, a classically-trained musician who creates quilts from music (via Philadelphia Magazine)

9) “The Wartime Quilts Made by Men from Military Uniforms” by Allison Meier digs into The American Folk Art Museum in New York is exhibiting wartime quilts made by British soldiers from their uniforms in the 18th and 19th centuries (via Hyperallergic).

10) Selvedge recently spotlighted Criminal Quilts: an art and archives project by textile artist Ruth Singer, who researches and creates work inspired by images of female criminals who were photographed in Stafford Prison from 1877 to 1915.