Morris Museum Art Quilt Exhibit

This past Saturday, I went to The Morris Museum to see an exhibit of Art Quilts from the collection of John M. Walsh III. Even though I didn't find all of the quilts visually appealing, I was fascinated to read each of the artist's statements about where they get their inspiration and how they manifest it in working with their materials.

The signature quilt of the show was "Geranium" by Veldo Newman. The two quilts that really spoke to me were "When the Bees Stings" by Joan Lintault and a quilt by Anna Kingsbury depicting a three ring circus.



The bee quilt shown above intrigued me because it was done with embroidery and the negative spaces were cut out. The elements were all created separately and then attached to a base so that the edge of the quilt was not straight. The thing that really blew me away was this quote from the artist's personal statement:
"I do not choose to reject a technique simply because it is laborious. I base my work on geological rather than TV time."

Anna Kingsbury's quilt was fascinating because of the three dimensional embellishments she encorporated into her design. She used to be into ceramics and created these little pieces of fired clay that represented the people in the audience. The other element that interested me was her use of crocheted elements appliqued onto the quilt. Crocheting was my first craft addiction, so maybe I'll have to try encorporating it into my quilts somehow. The thing that she said that really resonated with me was that when she works with her hands, she views it as a form of worshiping God.