{"id":1444,"date":"2012-01-25T14:45:08","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T19:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=1444"},"modified":"2012-01-25T14:46:49","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T19:46:49","slug":"so-why-art-in-fabric-and-thread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=1444","title":{"rendered":"So Why Art in Fabric and Thread?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some new catalogues came in this morning’s mail.\u00a0 One is\u00a0 Portfolio #18<\/em>,<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 (2011)\u00a0\u00a0an art quilt source book published periodically by Studio Art Quilt Associates, SAQA, \u00a0in which images of\u00a0quilted textile art by many of its\u00a0Professional Artist Members, PAMs, are presented in categories of abstract, nature, figurative, colour work, landscape, representational and sculptural.\u00a0 There’s some marvellous work\u00a0in it, and I am proud to be\u00a0there, too, (p 174)\u00a0 with Ebb & Flow 17,<\/em>\u00a0 pictured below.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Ebb & Flow 17, 178cm x 95cm, 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

I don’t remember who it was several years back, while commenting on the current state of the art quilt world, ruffled quite a few feathers by saying that there were many art quilt makers who could just as easily or more effectively\u00a0do in paint on canvas what they are presenting in fabric and thread, and perhaps more easily.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of course artist’s canvas is a fabric too, but we don’t think of it in the same way as those fabrics we cut, sew, print, dye, pleat, burn, paint, rip, stitch\u00a0\u00a0and do all other manner of things to in the name of making “art” quilts.\u00a0 The ensuing fuss contained a lot\u00a0emotionally charged comment\u00a0such as how fabric\u00a0is placed next to our skin right after our entry to this world and covers our bodies all our lives; therefore the tactile experience of fabric is innately familiar and important to humans,\u00a0and that handling\u00a0it as a raw material in making art\u00a0caters to primordial emotional needs.\u00a0 \u00a0As I looked at some of those Portfolio #18 images I found myself wondering why fabric and thread had been used for some\u00a0particular works<\/em><\/span>, some of which indeed were more like paintings, seeming to me less related to their quilt heritage than their heritage of the art of painting.\u00a0 Some of them are no doubt enhanced with some wonderful quilting, appropriately designed and well executed,\u00a0an additional\u00a0layer of texture like\u00a0mantle\u00a0over an already interesting image, and unfortunately for the technical enthusiasts there are no detail shots, but perhaps that is as unimportant as a close-up of a painting in which you can see the brush or knife strokes.\u00a0 But it got me thinking, why did this and that artist do what they have done on fabric – and really, is the quilting that is on top of the image necessary, or could it have been left out? Or, to put it another way:\u00a0\u00a0Would this work of art have had as much credibility (in the wider art\u00a0world)\u00a0as it appears to have in the art quilt world by\u00a0virtue of being a\u00a0layered and quilted textile\u00a0presented\u00a0as a wallhanging?\u00a0 Sigh – some did not come up positive there. I felt a bit jaded.<\/p>\n

Then I opened the Sightlines<\/span><\/em> catalogue, another SAQA publication for an exhibition of\u00a0installation works created especially for this exhibition by 14 selected PAMs, who in the words of\u00a0curator Virginia Spiegel were described as\u00a0“….artists … who were making art about Something.\u00a0 Not necessarily momentous or earthshaking, but definitely artwork about something that motivated the artist to create artwork of the highest standards both in its materiality and it meaning.\u00a0 We have all\u00a0seen art that is gorgeous and technically brilliant, but so mindless\u00a0and without depth that we do no more than glance at it and then glance away, disappointed.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Concluding her curator’s statement, Virginia says:”Each of the artists has brought\u00a0 to her Sightlines<\/strong> artwork knowledge, wit passion, maturity and a point of view. These artists are indeed telling stories about Something.”\u00a0 \u00a0This claim is especially true when one reads\u00a0each artist’s own comments about their particular work and the motivation to produce it.\u00a0\u00a0But without those statements,\u00a0some\u00a0stories were\u00a0were less readable, less comprehensible\u00a0than others.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As often happens to me when I look at recent books, magazines\u00a0or catalogues, I turn to yet another examination of my own rationale for making art in fabric<\/em><\/span> and thread\u00a0plus whichever of the above processes I’m using at the time.\u00a0 On one hand fabric is just another medium like paper or canvas, using\u00a0whatever additional materials, processes and tools that I select.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the other, I find myself thinking\u00a0yet again\u00a0whether I am just making something “gorgeous\u00a0and technically brilliant, but so mindless\u00a0and without depth that we do no more than glance at it and then glance away, disappointed”?\u00a0\u00a0I am confident\u00a0(and modest too) of the technical qualities of what I make, but not always so sure that my story connects with the viewer in significant ways….does it have that elusive Something?<\/p>\n

Both catalogues\u00a0can be ordered online from www.saqa.com<\/a> bookshop.\u00a0 Within the next few months, ie the northern spring, the images\u00a0of Portfolio #18<\/em><\/span> will also be accessible online from the SAQA website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some new catalogues came in this morning’s mail.\u00a0 One is\u00a0 Portfolio #18,\u00a0\u00a0 (2011)\u00a0\u00a0an art quilt source book published periodically by Studio Art Quilt Associates, SAQA, \u00a0in which images of\u00a0quilted textile art by many of its\u00a0Professional Artist Members, PAMs, are presented in categories of abstract, nature, figurative, colour work, landscape, representational and sculptural.\u00a0 There’s some marvellous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-ni","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1444"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1451,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444\/revisions\/1451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}