Quilt National at the San Jose Quilt and Textile Museum

NOTE: I am not sure if I will post next week, Dec 24. I may post on the 31st; I’ll play that one by ear.

I drove 2.5 hours to the San Jose Quilt and Textile Museum to hear a talk by Nancy Bavor about their current exhibit, section A of Quilt National. I saw the entire show during my Midwestern trip last summer and wrote about it here. I posted a ton of photos in that post so I’m not posting photos here.

I was able to indulge and spend hours with the exhibit when I visited The Dairy Barn last summer, so I am intimately familiar with every quilt in Quilt National. I was especially interested in what Nancy Bavor had to say about it.

Nancy is the ex-Director of SJMQT and currently serves on the Board of the American Quilt Study Group. Nancy is also an author and sought after curator and juror, and has a Masters from the University of Nebraska; her thesis was on the emergence of the art quilt in California. So I was especially interested in her talk.

I learned some interesting stats from Nancy’s talk:

•  Only 15% of the 659 submitted quilts were accepted into the current Quilt National
• California is over represented with 14% of the 85 quilts from California artists
• 27 of the submissions were first timers
• The first Quilt National in 1979 had no international entries
• This particular part of the collection had 4 (or 5?) California artists.

As a bonus, I ran into good friend, Spanish quilt artist Cristina Arcenegui Bono! Who’d a thunk I’d run into her there!

Showing in the hall gallery were a few quilts from the Marbaum collection which includes 87 quilts; 4  were showing when I went. Here are a few:

This piece was inspired by Vermeer’s “A Lady Seated at the Virginal”. I see a Michael James influence, which may just be in my little head.

I am pretty sure I saw this at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento in 2003 or 4. I had never seen “art quilts” before and I was gobsmacked!

How incredibly innovative this must have been in 1997! Good art does not age.

There was another concurrent exhibit, “Diversity in Basketry”. This is an art form I know little about, but I loved the diversity and especially the works that incorporated shadows:

Recycled guitar and violin strings as well as copper wire. The shadows are a huge part of the image.

Aluminum wire mesh created a tapestry feel.

Stainless steel and hand made bobbin lace. Again, those shadows!

She used traditional fiber techniques with metal. So elegant!

The colors of this were so beautiful. Twill Twine.

Susan does an amazing job of capturing gesture in her 3-D pieces.

I love feathers and I have a collection of photos of quilts of unexpected genre that use feathers. Yes, there ARE Modern and art quilts that use feathers! No need to clutch those pearls.

Nancy’s talk was so worth the 5 hours of driving! I also was able to reconnect with some SAQA folks that I had not seen in years. It kinda felt like Old Home Week. The exhibit is up until Jan 11th and it is worth the drive!

It was a bit more of an adventure than I banked on. San Jose has NO disabled parking places for blocks around the museum. None. I was on my knee scooter, had my disabled parking tag, with no place to park. After driving around for 20 minutes, I spotted a disabled couple heading to their car. I pulled up and asked if I could wait for their space, no hurry. That was a miracle!

BUT, I still had to knee scoot 3 blocks with very bumpy and uneven terrain. I am lucky to be only very temporarily disabled, but I understand now how challenging it can be. I arrived at the Museum grumpy and foul, but I shook that off and thoroughly enjoyed the art and the people. I should be off that scooter in the next few weeks. Can’t wait!

I’ll be linking up:
Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday