Pandemic, Black Lives Matter among themes in quilt exhibit
During 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic may have prevented many people from visiting the Dairy Barn Arts Center’s “Quilt National ‘21” exhibit in Athens. Now, a large segment of that biennial exhibit can be seen in Columbus at the Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery.
Thirty works on display from the more than 80 works in the original exhibit include a nice mix of abstract and figurative quilts, a number of pieces by Ohio artists and the “best of show” winner from the full exhibit.
Holly Ittel, Quilt National director, said that the 42nd biennial exhibit is reflective of the year 2020, with many of the artists addressing themes of the pandemic.
“I see artists using the medium to express the isolation of 2020, address sorrow and fear and shed light on tragedies happening in our society and around the globe,” Ittel writes in her curatorial statement. “I also see artists using this medium to celebrate life, in its joy, complexity and simplicity.”
At the start of the Riffe Gallery’s exhibit are two quilts that demonstrate the contrasts in form and style found throughout all the quilts.
In “Brittle Crazie Glasse,” Anne Smith, from Great Britain, references George Herbert’s poem “The Windows” about a preacher’s feelings of inadequacy that are alleviated by the beauty of stained-glass windows.
Using recycled cotton, denim and other materials, Smith created a poignant scene of two homeless people she helped take food to near New York’s Grand Central Terminal — shedding light on the problem and, as the poem states, “to be a window through thy grace.”
Beside Smith’s quilt hangs “Fracas,” the best in show winner by Kit Vincent of Ottawa, Ontario. In this spectacularly colored quilt, hundreds of shapes and lines converge with layers and layers of reds, oranges, golds, pinks, blues and more. The quilt both captures the frenzy of modern times and celebrates color.
In her beautiful “Summer Inferno #7,” Sandra Champion of Tasmania, Australia, uses kimono silks in fiery colors as well as newspaper clippings and velvety black strips to mourn the losses from the 2019-20 Australian wildfires.
She writes: “A huge wave of orange came down from the mountain. The cataclysmic bush fire in the World Heritage forests left blackened trees and millions of dead animals. It is impossible to comprehend.”
Swiss artist Judith Mundwiler took used parking cards and aluminum foil to produce “May 2020,” a large, twinkling, royal blue field created by the cards that symbolize how “our mobility is becoming a major burden on our planet.”
Among the figurative quilts is “Sun on My Patio Chair 2020 Isolation” by Medina, Ohio, artist Jean M. Evans. The large, empty chair is the centerpiece of this all black-and -white quilt save for a group of pale-yellow jonquils in the background.
Leann Hileman of Glendale, Arizona, set a windmill on a desert landscape in “Where Once a Tree Was Standing.” Kestrel Michaud of West Melbourne, Florida, put a man in a Da Vinci-style flying kite soaring over stone bridge in her clever and impressive “Morning
Commute.”
In “Annie and John: 7 of Paring Knives (Swords) in the Kitchen Tarot,” Wooster, Ohio, artist Susan Shie pays homage to people lost during the pandemic, especially Annie Glenn and John Prine, both of whom died from COVID-19. The figures in her elaborate and intricate scene carry printed phrases that describe their lives. The tarot card mentioned in the quilt’s title refer to communication, ideas and spiritualism.
Obviously, the Quilt National ’21 artists were thinking deeply and expansively as they created these works. Each of the 30 quilts is accompanied by a list of its materials and a few sentences that reveal the artist’s intent and process. Each quilt is worthy of inspection in order to fully appreciate its meaning and take in its beauty.
Quilt National, which began in the late 1970s, is the foremost contemporary art quilt competition. “Quilt National ‘23” will open May 27, 2023, in Athens at the Dairy Barn Arts Center, a building that from 1914 to the late 1970s was filled with cows, not quilts.
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