This time last year, I attended a quilt judging workshop in New Zealand with NQA judge Jeannie Spears. One key message I took away from this exercise was the value of attending as many quilt exhibitions as possible to experience a wide range of quilts, techniques and styles. It’s a lesson that I’ve been applying of late. Two quilt exhibition excursions in as many days and I am pooped!
First up was the Quilt Indulgence Festival. I was keen to take in the 39 quilts from Gees Bend but I was a little disappointed. Having already seen some Gees Bend quilts when I was in Seattle in mid-July 2006, I was aware that the workmanship on the quilts is rather crude. However, the gallery setting in Seattle allowed the graphic designs to shine and the way the light bounced off the wale ribbing of the corduroy fabric added another dimension.
Unfortunately, the aisle layout in Sydney did not allow you to stand back from the quilts to really appreciate their overall visual impact. Instead, viewers were up close and personal with the all the technical imperfections of these utilitarian pieces. The other disappointment was that this batch of quilts did not include any of the works that feature in the book The Quilts of Gees Bend that I have studied so closely:
Still I am glad I made the effort to get down to Sydney to the festival. In addition to acquainting myself with a different batch of Gees Bend quilts, there were numerous other quilts on display from Japan, Europe, Australia and New Zealand and I particularly enjoyed seeing some of the quilts that feature in the Down Under Quilt 2009 Calendar. If you were able to attend this exhibition, did you enjoy the quilts on display?
Tomorrow I will write about my impressions from the opening of the re-fabricating environments exhibition of art quilts.
Brenda says
For a couple of other viewpoints, see the blog posts by Erica and Rooruu.
For clarification, I AM grateful for the opportunity to view the Gees Bend quilts in Australia and am not advocating a gallery setting. However, wider aisles or a slightly different layout at the same venue would have allowed viewers to better appreciate the graphic qualities of the quilts on display and I still hope to one day see some of the [core?] Gees Bend quilts that have been promoted in other publications.