LBI Foundation of Arts & Sciences
August 2-21, 2007
Review: ‘Fiber Revolution’ Show is Anything but Square
By Pat Johnson
Right up front I have to say quilts don’t generally turn me on as an art form. Maybe that’s because the difficulty of creating patterns in fabric is beyond my capability – I was once frightened by a Singer sewing machine. But my love of fabrics, of collecting and hoarding them, ostensibly for making articles of clothing, was an addiction broken only with the trashing of the above-mentioned machine, a liberating act.
Quilting as an art form is a relatively new phenomenon. Unless memory is playing tricks on me, it seems to have come to the fore with the AIDS Quilt Project, when artists afflicted with AIDS and their family members wrapped their grief in homemade “quilts,” which were joined to other quilts as a way to bring attention to the plight of those stricken and yet to be stricken. This was truly a revolutionary act.
But that’s not happening in “Art Concentrated by Fiber Revolution,” now at the Long Beach Island Foundation of Arts and Sciences.
Once upon a time so much of feminine worth (for women of a certain age) was wrapped up in the mastery of household chores: baking, cleaning, sewing, childcare; so is this the revolution Fiber Revolution artists are proclaiming, the leap over the wall of household domestication, using a quilt as a parachute into pure “art for art’s sake”?
Fiber Revolution was founded in 2002 by Martha Sielman of Storrs, Conn. Its members hail from the New England and mid-Atlantic states. Their mission statement reads: “After four hundred years of the evolution of an American Art form, it is no longer necessary for fiber artist to use their time to make bed covering or clothing, but the urge to create beautiful objects is the same now as it has been since the beginning.
“Fiber Revolution is a group of thirty award-winning textile artists who turn the concept of traditional quilting upside down and inside out. With fiber as their medium, they dye, paint, cut, tear, stamp, fuse, and embellish it, before quilting or stitching through the layers of cloth. The results are not quilts to place on the bed but to hang on the wall.”
Of all the quilts in the “Art Concentrated by Fiber Revolution,” now hanging at the Foundation, perhaps Tristan Blakeman’s “…and all the Gods wept’ is the most compelling. In the center, quotations from conservative, far-right religionists such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell fuel hatred of homosexuals. Pictures of skinhead types carrying signs with such sayings as “God Hates Fags” and scanned newspaper clippings of gay-bashings and murders fill the space while around the perimeter, a pantheon of gods that includes Jesus, Buddha and Gilgamesh plus pop idols such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and Judy Garland all weep. It’s a powerful plea for tolerance and justice.
Blakeman’s is the only quilt that tackles a social problem. The rest of the quilts are far from revolutionary, but they are beautiful objects.
Most enjoyable are Deborah Schwatzman’s two quilts “Juicy Fruit” and “Elizabethan Blue.” [pictured] Schwartzman, like her contemporaries, finds inspiration for her intricate designs in nature and is “passionate about fabric, in cutting it apart and reassembling it into a composition of intersecting possibilities.” In her own artist’s statement she could speak for many of her friends.
In “Juicy Fruit” she has created fantastic blooms in citron and chartreuse with fuchsia stamens against a kaleidoscope of blue-green fronds. “Elizabethan Blue” juggles blue blossoms against an orange background.
Flowers are a popular theme, no doubt because of their color possibilities.
Jeri Riggs’ “Hothouse Flora” dissects a bloom into its essential parts and explodes it with color.
Barbara Barrick McKie has taken pictures of orchids, enlarged them on fabric and quilted them. They hang in the rafters of the Foundation, draped above the crowd as if hanging from trees in the jungle.
Carolyn Lee Vehslage continues her quest to use up all the un-recyclable computer discs she can: she has incorporated them into “World Cruise Quilts, a personal quilt travelogue, [wrong, all the blocks were made by the ship’s guests] and in her three “Techno Jams,” colorful odes to jelly.
Quilts that work as abstract paintings make the most successful transition to fine art.
Gloria Hansen has taken the traditional, log cabin style quilt and used it to create an optical illusion in “Perspectives II.” [pictured]
Judy Cuddihee’s three quilts, “Taking a Line for a Walk” #’s 2, 3, and 5, are soothing, cheerful abstracts. The orange, Creamsicle-like line flows across a gray-green that is almost the same color value, so the orange “pops” without jarring our senses.”
“Configurations IV, Twilight City” by Norma Schlager is the quintessential skyscraper-at-night quilt, with a touch of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”
Eileen Lauterborns’ quilts. “Suddenly Green” and “From Fire to Ice,” are masterful. In “Suddenly Green” a lawn seems shredded. The abstract placement of quares in “From Fire to Ice” are broken and linked with black rickrack. Both these works are very satisfying in their use of composition and color.
Besides the full-length art quilts there are a number of individual quilted squares that are for sale for $100 all around the gallery.
The “Art Concentrated by Fiber Revolution” exhibit continues through Aug 22. The Foundation is located at 120 Long Beach Blvd. In Loveladies.
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