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January Issue 2004
Folk Art Center in Asheville, NC, Offers National Quilt Exhibition
The Folk Art Center located on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville, NC, will present The Quilt National, a biennial international juried exhibition of innovative quilts. The exhibit opens on Jan. 17 and continues through Apr. 4, 2004. Since its inception almost 25 years ago, the Quilt National has been and continues to be a showcase for contemporary textile artists who expand the boundaries of traditional quiltmaking.
The exhibition is organized at the Dairy Barn Cultural Arts Center in Athens, OH, during the summers of odd numbered years. For the current exhibit, three exceptional figures in the world of fiber art - quiltmaker Liz Axford, mixed media textile artist Wendy Huhn and author, curator and quilt expert Robert Shaw - reviewed more than 1,400 entries by approximately 670 artists from the United States and abroad. What began in 1979 as an exhibit opportunity for quiltmakers whose works did not fit the standards of the day is now a prize sought by fiber artists from all over the world. Eighty-four quilts were selected that represent the most exciting and innovative trends in the medium and that demonstrate the breadth and diversity of contemporary expression.
The entire exhibit is shown at the Dairy Barn and twenty works make up the touring show that will be on view in Asheville where the gallery walls wil blaze with color and patterns. Felis Forever (1) by Nancy Erickson of Missoula, MT, a velvet, satin, cotton and felt cougar that peers out at visitors and won Best of Show, is included. Some of the artists embrace traditional patterns and techniques but marry them to cutting-edge techiniques such as intricately patterned machine quilting, surface embellishment with embroidery, found objects and paint and the inclusion of photographic or computer-generated images. California artist Sandi Cummings' Ladies of the Day includes screen-printed half-tones that blur the line betwen appearance and reality. The result melds the graphic and contemporary figures with the more traditional quilted background.
The show is an unparalleled opportunity to witness contemporary trends in quilts, surface design and fiber art from other countries. On view will be works of art by quiltmakers from France, South Korea, Wales, Japan, Israel and more. Noriko Endo's Autumn Walk is covered with pieces of soft tulle and was inspired by the trees changing colors along a sidewalk in Tokyo. Inge Mardal and Steen Hougs, a husband and wife quilting team from Chantilly, France, have produced a piece, Moulting, that feels more like a painting than a piece of fiber art.
Local artist and Southern Highland Craft Guild member Jen Swearington's quilted wall piece is also part of the exhibit. Her wall quilt, Good Humor, lists pieced bed sheets, layers of gesso, charcoal and grease pencil drawing, screen printing, free motion embrodidery and quilting as its materials. Sweearington's field is contemporary fiber art - just the type of work that this exhibition acknowledges and celebrates.
The Folk Art Center, home of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, presents regional and national exhibitions of both traditional and contemporary craft. The Southern Highland Craft Guild is an educational, non-profit organization founded in 1930 to bring together the crafts and craftspeople of the Southern Appalachian region for the benefit of shared resources, educaion, marketing and conservation.
For further information
check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the center at
828/298-7928 or on the web at (www.southernhighlandguild.org).
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