Tag Archives: Quilts

“From the Bed to the Wall:” Quilts at the Rockwell

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Rockwell Museum currently has a special exhibit, “From the Bed to the Wall: Quilts from a Private New York Collection.”

Quilts are… what? Prosaic utilitarian objects… interesting folk craft artifacts… revelatory data of history, society, culture, and ethnicity… creations of high art.

The answer is, any of the above… and sometimes more than one at once.

Curiously, it seems that from the 1700s to today, quilts have made a journey from high craft, to common furnishing, to high art.

When cloth was an expensive, hand-made material, quilters were upper-class women, well-skilled in decorative arts. The new “dark, satanic mills” of the industrial revolution flooded the world with millions of acres of cloth, for which price suddenly became almost inconsequential.

Now ordinary women… and it was overwhelmingly women… became quilters. Design and technique became folkways. Since it was women’s work, and since the end result was a domestic product, and since hardly anybody paid money for it, scholarly and cultural types paid it no attention at all.

The exhibition in Rockwell’s mezzanine carries us from the end of the 18th century to the dawn of the 21st. Technique is not much touched upon. Part of the emphasis is on design, and part is on the cultural or personal settings of the creators.

“Crows Quilt,” a creation by African American artist Sarah May Taylor (1916-2000) was one of my favorites. Three crows adorn each block, but no two blocks are alike, each varying the color and position of the birds.

My other favorite was “Center Diamond,” made about 1910 by a Pennsylvania Amishwoman. The geometric design fits with traditional Amish wariness about figural art, but it also makes a bold, dramatic assertion that seizes your attention from across the room. It opens the “Amish and Modernism” section of the exhibit, an apt if counterintuitive observation – Amish design… so conservative and traditional… anticipates, and even guides, modern design.

Joyce’s favorite was a highly personal sampler quilt, where many blocks include prayers or meditations, almost as though the whole thing forms a personal or religious journal.

We examined an 1891 redwork pattern quilt, trying in vain to discern whether the artist embroidered her figures freehand, or whether she stitched over a printed pattern. (If she did it freehand, she was DARN good.) We also looked closely at a midwestern Amish Bow Tie quilt (c. 1920), finished with several eye-catching errors – such as one block incomplete, one block rotated 90 degrees, and one block off-color. It’s been a traditional practice in some Amish circles to deliberately make a quilt with visible errors, to emphasize that only God achieves perfection.

There were a couple of doll quilts and a couple of crazy quilts, plus a few “friendship” or “signature” quilts, on which the names of makers, friends, or supporters are embroidered. This included a “tithing quilt” from Brewerton Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1924). The term was utterly new to us, despite a couple of decades of living in southeastern Pennsylvania… it seems it’s a signature quilt, but what it has to do with tithing is beyond us!

(The quilt exhibit runs through January 10. Also on just now are are “Antigravity: Elaine K. Ng,” through February 2022; “Three Generations: Pablita Velarde, Helen Hardin and Margrete Bagshaw,” through January; the Gingerbread Invitational, through December 31; and “Martine Gutierrez: Takeover,” through December 13.)


A Hundred Quilts

There’s an impressive quilt show going on at Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport.

Why quilts, you might ask? Well, you might be interested to know that a very young Glenn Curtiss, fascinated by the process, once sat on his mother’s lap and pieced a quilt while she operated the treadle sewing machine. (Wish we had THAT quilt to see on exhibit!)

But more aptly, Curtiss Museum was originally founded to cover local history, as well as the pioneer aviator. It’s also the only real exhibit space in the central part of the county, so it’s the venue for many topics, which is part of the fun of the place. When I was director there I knew a Canadian couple who planned their visit every two years so that he could spend his time with the machinery, while she enjoyed the biennial embroidery show.

My wife is an enthusiast for all things needlearts, but I am no specialist in quilting. That being said, though, I know what I like, and enjoy visiting shows like this.

One of the quilts that really grabbed my eye was a large piece by Marie B. Peek of Bath, entitled “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish,” which she cheerfully confesses to having lifted from Dr. Seuss. (I especially like the barracuda that stretches over two blocks in the upper left.)

Besides just the fun of looking at all the varied fish, I was intrigued at her written description explaining that she had never been to the Caribbean, but enjoyed seeing pictures of the colorful fish in their sun-drenched habitat. This really resonated with me because back in the 1960s my parents used to take my sister and me to Audubon Society lectures in Providence. I’m still overwhelmed by the films of life on Caribbean reefs… and just like Ms. Peek, I’ve never been there.

Interestingly, at the other end of the room, and the other end of the spectrum, Marie Peek also created what was perhaps the next most visually arresting piece, “Carpenter’s Square”… an austere traditional design in blue, which just bursts from the sea of white onto which it’s been worked.

Also bright and vivid was “Billiards,” by Pat Clayton of Hammondsport – each block a large billiard ball in its own glorious color.

I’ve long known that Mary Shipp is a whiz with a needle, and I really enjoyed two of her small pieces… one a flock of goldfinches on a thistle, and one an elephant with her baby. We can’t help but be touched by such an image. Apart from us, elephants are about the only beings that spend years caring for their young. There’s real fellow-feeling there.

“Building Blocks,” by Wendy Baker of Dundee, bore 11 blocks with variations of traditional designs, and the quilt had very attractive October colors. Similarly muted was “Sprigs & Twigs,” by Fran Stoughton of Trumansburg. As a historian I was interested in the “Variation on Whig Rose” quilt by Maureen Johnson of Bath, but if you like a more modern, whimsical, and seasonal approach you should look up “The Ghastlies Family Reunion,” by Shirley Ann Fleet of Bath.

It may be Halloween season now, but Christmas season is coming up. Mary Ellen Westlake of Almond used Christmas fabric and traditional designs to create “Merry Christmas Quilt,” while Pat Clayton dedicated a block apiece to each of the “12 Days of Christmas.”

Liz Scott created a couple of quilts using a process I’d never seen or heard of before, ice dyeing. My wife tells me that you set dyes and ice cubes onto the fabric, and let nature take its course. It has a very ‘sixties feel. Also on the unusual side (and VERY interesting) were hand-hooked art pieces created by Diane Philips.

Just for fun I went around and did a count, and somebody else might get a slightly different figure, but I came up with exactly 100 pieces in this exhibit, which is a number worth seeing if you’re at all interested. The show runs through Saturday, November 1.

“A Passion for Color”

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Curtiss Museum currently has a major exhibition of quilts.
On our visit a couple of weeks ago, as we entered the museum we entered a Stonehenge of quilts hanging from free-standing racks — in addition to those hanging on walls, exhibited in cases, or otherwise being shown.
Just to give you some perspective… I started counting up quilts that could at least qualify as lap quilts. (Most were full-size.) I came up with a figure of 73.
PLUS a few dozen smaller items, articles of quilted clothing, and more. I don’t quilt, though my wife and my sister have each made a few. Being as historically interested as I am, and enthusiastic about folk tales and folk music as I am, you can guess that I enjoy looking at traditional quilts. But I ALSO have fun seeing newer approaches — tradition’s great, but so’s innovation.
“A Day in Lake Country,” by Jennie Peck of Alexander, springs to life in bright untraditional yellows and oranges. Happy fish swim in and out of underwater scenes. The small quilt “Mardi Gras” (Joyce Swackhammer, Bath) is very dark, shot through with bright metallic thread — to me, they suggested fireworks. “Let’s Build a Snowman” (Maureen Johnson, Bath) jumps right out with big white snowflakes on bright blue bands.
Maureen Johnson also created the “Carolina Lily” quilt tossed onto the gleaming black Studebaker sleigh, courtesy of John Wickes in Prattsburgh.
Virginia Gleason’s “Civil War Sampler” abounds in traditional geometric forms. Katherine Baumgardner (Thurston) created several quilts, including “Mama Says,” with redwork outlined scenes and quotes from mother.
Baumgardner is also exhibiting “Quilts in the Garden,” three outlined scenes of quilts on the clothesline, done in redwork outline embroidery. The scenes are set vertically, mounted in an old window sash.
“Needles & Notions” (Shirley Fleet, Bath) is a long hanging, picturing shears, needle, thread, measuring tape, sewing machine, and other quilting necessities. It’s her first adventure in paper piecing.
Several quilts had holiday designs, including three or four Halloween quilts that I wouldn’t want on MY bed, but to each his own. On the other hand I very much enjoyed “Over the River and Through the Woods,” with flying goose borders, traditional squares on the dividers, and a warm wintry scene.
One quilt is not only traditional but historic — perhaps 150 years old. It’s a spoke quilt, often done for fundraising, with 540 names stitched in. We’d love to know what community it’s from, but we’ve only identified one or two names with confidence. Take a look, and see if you can help.
Why Curtiss Museum? For one thing, it’s probably the biggest year-round exhibit space in the central part of the county. But for another, the very young Glenn Curtiss, already mechanically enthralled, was fascinated by his mother’s sewing machine — perhaps the most complex piece of machinery in most households back in the early 1880s. So she sat him on her lap and worked the treadle with her feet while a very small Glenn Curtiss pieced a quilt for her. Too bad we don’t have THAT to show today.