Layered & Stitched
A beautiful showcase of art quilt history!
Layered & Stitched: 50 Years of Innovative Art is a gorgeous showcase of 50 art quilts by renowned master artists. Seminal works show the evolution of the art quilt from the earliest pioneers creating during the 1960s through to today’s artists experimenting with new forms, new materials, and new digital technologies.
Trace the development of this exciting art form as it developed from isolated makers, primarily in Ohio and California, into an international movement involving thousands of artists spanning the globe.
EXHIBITION SCHEDULE:
Quilt Festival Houston: October 31, 2019 - November 3, 2019
Texas Quilt Museum: January 9, 2020 - March 15, 2020
San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles: April 19 - July 12, 2020
Ross Art Museum, Delaware, Ohio: May 14, 2021 - July 2, 2021
The Dairy Barn Arts Center, Athens, Ohio: May 2022 - July 2022
COMPANION BOOK:
Published by Schiffer Books, Art Quilts Unfolding offers full-color images of 400 masterpieces along with engaging interviews and profiles of 58 influential artists, key leaders, important events, and significant collections. Organized by decade, an additional 182 international artists' works are featured.
An introduction by Janet Koplos, former senior editor of Art in America, and a conclusion by Ulysses Grant Dietz, emeritus chief curator of the Newark Museum, help us to understand the impact and the future of the art. available for purchase in saqa store »
Please contact us with any inquiries about this exhibition or artwork.
More Information
A core group of about sixty artists began to make quilts as contemporary art from three directions: the world of stitchery and traditional quilt making; the academy of fine art; and the alternative academy of fine crafts, especially fibers and ceramics. The radical feminism and racial politics of this era influenced many quilt artists.
As the art quilt movement gained prominence and greater exposure, artists began exploring materials and processes beyond the commercial fabrics and hand-stitching used by traditional makers. Pieces with machine quilting became more common and accepted.
Quilt artists endorse the postmodern tendency to embrace unorthodox materials and pop culture, working in a collage or pastiche mentality. The assemblage nature of quilts encouraged this approach to art making.
Artists who created their own surface-designed fabrics became increasingly common during this decade: handdyed fabric, printed, stamped, discharged, distressed, manipulated. Embellishments — beads, buttons, bottle caps and other found objects — were everywhere.
Many quilt artists use the quilt medium to address important social, political, economic, and environmental issues of the new millennium. While some artists are intrigued by these new technologies, others embrace handwork, preferring evidence of the human touch to communicate their message.