Washington: Art & Museums

Washington is awash with museums and it was a difficult choice to make (other than the Textile Museum of course!).  And whilst the lure of the famous Smithsonian was terribly strong, I jumped in at the Women in the Arts Museum. 

I am pleased to say that an artwork by Emily Kingwarree (1916-1996) is in the collection.  Her painting “Yam Story” is inspirational; strong, bright brushstrokes sing over a dark background.  Nearby works by LC Armstrong “Blue Shift” and Valerie Javdon “Ace in the Hole” gave me great ideas and I wanted to start sketching immediately.  A classic sculpture by Barbara Hepworth made me appreciate her talent. The main exhibit was by talented Elisabetta Gut.  She presented 22 Artist Books all focused on recording dreams and memories.  She used symbolism, purposeful signs and engaging metaphors to manipulate her medium of books.  She collaged, constructed book objects (cut-outs etc.) and drew poems that captured, to my mind anyway, the intrinsic qualities of fleeting dreams and vague personal memories.

Textile Art in the Renwick Gallery

The next gallery I visited was the Renwick Gallery with exhibitions of Gaman (Japanese WW2 ephemera) and Timber.  Some of the timber pieces were stunning and I often found myself wondering if indeed they were actually timber, such was their grace and beauty.

Gaman was an exhibit of items created by Japanese (even American born Japanese) during their internment during WW2.  The works were beautiful given what little they had and showed the detainees resourcefulness, even in times of great sorrow.  The piece I could not take my eyes off was a small sleeveless white silk vest.  It had red thread sashiko, a painted tiger on the back and 5 buttons.  

Called “Senninbari”, thousand person stitches, this vest had been knotted by separate individuals to bring good luck, good fortune and long life to its wearer.  The tiger motif symbolised courage.  This vest of a thousand knots was often worn into battle.  In some cases, senninbari could also be a scarf or a sash.  Textiles as charms, full of meaning and ritual.

(Photo from Review)

Washington: Humble Battlefield Quilts



A soldier's belongings

Whilst we toured the historic Manassas battlefields with Dominique & Warren, I couldn’t help but zoom into the soldiers’ belongings set up under a tree as they might have been in 1861-1865.  Yes of course, there was a quilt!  It resembled our waggas in a way and appeared to be made of wool tailoring samples.  I was on a guided tour so didn’t have time to ask questions but managed a photo or two.  It got me thinking about practical quilts, including those made for & by men, and what they were used for.  The chances of these most basic of our craft to have survived are slim unlike “good” quilts that were kept locked away at home. 

It was great timing to have the AFAM exhibition so that I could explore Civil War Quilts and began to see another side to this craft – so many layers of meaning, so moving and so humble.

A Soldier's Kit

American Folk Art Museum

During our stay in NYC (Sep 2010) I managed to get to the AFAM - wouldn’t you know it, it was partially closed to install an exhibition.  That exhibition (she said breathing deeply) was Quilts: Masterworks from the AFAM – a two part exhibition and a book big enough to gulp my entire baggage allowance in one foul swoop. 

Thankfully bad weather had a quilted lining and our side trip to Washington meant that I could manage a few hours at the exhibition a few days later.  His Nibs kindly agreed to catch an even later bus back to our floating home at Great Kills Harbor (he'd discovered Sotherbys). 

I started off by just looking; trying to take it all in.  The range of quilts was amazing and made me want to rush home and start something new.  (Oh, that cursed UFO box!)  I then saw other people taking photographs so I spent some time hoping my camera would adjust successfully to the low light levels.  

Not all my photos turned out, but enough for a memory jogger as I knew that wonderful book was well beyond my a. budget and b. luggage allowance.  After that, and now with security guards watching me through slitted eyes, I started taking notes.  

Don't you just love that wall colour!!

So, in some sort of historic order, (and almost cryptic summary) we were treated to quilted examples of:

Whole Cloth (1750 to 1850): British legacy & flaunting large pieces of expensive cloth

Chintz & Stencilled (1775 to 1865): showed colonialism’s reach to the Far East

Pieced (1840 to present) meaning, tradition and ritual became strong in designs

Amish (1849): beauty in simplicity and restraint; a strict pattern code

Applique (1840 to 1900’s): in particular Baltimore style’s ravishing storytelling

Log Cabin (1860): described as the beginning of an American “style” and shows pioneering spirit

Crazy (1880 to 1910): quilted, embroidered and enhanced, Victorian in every way; exposure to Japanese crazed ceramics and asymmetrical art at the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition

Signature (1900’s): raising money for good deeds and sharing in times of need

Show or Exhibition (1900’s): introducing cultural & technological advances to an amazed public (Edwardian society)

Colonial Revival (1910-1950): looking to the past for inspiration; represented an ideal rather than reality; felt a need for a simpler life

African American (1920): famous for pushing the limits of our concept of quilt design and manufacture

Contemporary (1960): again the start of a revival; taking new directions and for some no holds barred 

Again, I stress that I don’t want to be too prescriptive.  There are far too many quilt historians out there who really do know what they are on about.  I did find one or two interesting sites to satisfy my curiosity however.  Try Barbara Brackman's Civil War blog (and see if you can't resist making up her weekly blocks!) or this historical summary on Quilters Bee.  There are plenty of others too. 

I don't know about you, but I suffer from time to time with patchwork burnout. You'll recognise the symptoms - lack of inspiration or motivation, wondering why you need to make another quilt, walking past your machine without even stopping to pat it....  I could go on.  Let me tell you, seeing quilts hanging, even if you organise a showing of your own or your group's (finished or not!) is very heart lifting.  So, well done to the AFAM. I’m just sorry I couldn’t get to see Part 2 of the exhibit.

Back to the Met then off to AFAM

I was going to deal with the Met and AFAM together but… 

I spent another whole day (Sep10) surfing the corridors of the Met in NYC.  Again, it was wonderful and again disappointingly, I only covered so little of it.  This time however, my camera died and all I have to show is a couple of photos of paintings by Surrealist, Yves Tanguy.  So this is my Yves Tanguy story. 

Many years ago (truly) a friend challenged me to depict his favourite poem, “The House of Yves Tanguy” by French Poet Andre Breton (1939).  I had visions of bright stars lying scattered like sequins on a velvety dark "night" – more Vincent Van Gogh style – and had not been able to conceptualise beyond that. A little bit corny and not really textile arty!  Clearly I had not seen any work by Tanguy!

The Met however gave me a real buzz.  This was my opportunity to see up close & personal, Tanguy’s amazing surrealist pieces. Described as some of the strangest paintings ever created, my preconceived ideas were challenged!  So after some thought, I’ve taken up my challenge, again - something decorative; something stimulating; something remote. Mind you, there isn’t a whole lot to show for this revival in interest at the moment other than these photos and the odd bit of surfing to discover what surrealism is all about (and what Breton was on about).  Isn’t it rather odd that Breton, author of automatic writing (writing without deliberate thought) requires, if indeed I am to finish above mentioned challenge, so much research and careful thought!      

Another UFO in the making...although, don't hold your breath!