|
Free Quilt
Patterns
 Back
8
article(s) will be saved.
The link
information below provides a persistent link to the article you've
requested.
Persistent
link to this record: Following the link below will bring you to the start
of the article or citation.
Cut and Paste: To place article links in an external web document, simply
copy and paste the HTML below, starting with "<A HREF"
To
continue, select FILE
then SAVE AS from
your browser's toolbar above. Be sure to save as a plain text file (.txt)
or an HTML file (.html).
If you
have any problems or questions, contact Technical Support at http://support.epnet.com/CustSupport/Customer/OpenCase.aspx
or call 800-758-5995.
|
|
|
Record: 1
|
|
Title:
|
A Quilting Bee Bounty.
|
|
Authors:
|
Plagens, Peter
|
|
Source:
|
Newsweek; 11/18/2002, Vol. 140 Issue 21, p78, 1p,
3c
|
|
Document Type:
|
Article
|
|
Subject Terms:
|
ART
FANCY work
QUILTING
EXHIBITIONS
|
|
Geographic Terms:
|
NEW York (N.Y.)
NEW York (State)
ALABAMA
|
|
Abstract:
|
Reviews the art exhibition 'The Quilts of Gee's
Bend' at the Whitney Museum in New York City. How the quilts from
African-American women from Gee's Bend, Alabama is on display; Use of
salvaged cloth like jeans and hankerchiefs.
|
|
Lexile:
|
1160
|
|
Full Text Word Count:
|
465
|
|
ISSN:
|
0028-9604
|
|
Accession Number:
|
7853290
|
|
Persistent link to this record:
|
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=7853290&db=mih
|
|
Cut and Paste:
|
<A href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=7853290&db=mih">A
Quilting Bee Bounty.</A>
|
|
Database:
|
Middle Search Plus
|
|
|
|
|
Section: Art
The work of
women from one rural town matches the masters of abstraction
America
is a nation of quilters--20 million of them, in fact, which is
probably more than the number of people who go to see exhibitions of
modern art in museums. But quilters and modern-art fans need not be
mutually exclusive groups, especially when they could be joyfully
united by "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," an exhibition at the
Whitney Museum in New York that opens next week. (There's also a
gorgeous catalog from Tinwood Books.) The 70 quilts in the show are
no less than the equals--in unconventional color, bold and surprising
composition, and subtle visual invention--of just about any abstract
painting made by any trained artist living in one of the world's
great cities. Gee's Bend, Ala., on the contrary, is a remote,
dirt-poor riverside farm town of fewer than 1,000 people. And its
contemporary quilters are all African-American women with no art
schooling. Maintaining a local tradition handed down from their
great-grandmothers, they've made their art objects from salvaged
cloth that includes old hankies and their husbands' worn work jeans.
It's as if something in the local water has produced a whole
villageful of Paul Klees who create their vibrant work on a bed-size
scale instead of in tiny watercolors.
Take
the informal grid design in maroon and dark blue by Annie Mae Young
(b. 1928). Of course there's a pattern to it--patterning is the heart
of quilt making. But where does the visual wit come from to
distribute the maroon shafts in such a clever way (with, for
instance, one on the left balanced by a sudden insertion of railroad
denim)? Not from Bauhaus Design 101, but from the artist's own
sophisticated imagination. The same holds true for the unique and
painterly (think Helen Frankenthaler) glimpse of turquoise at the
bottom of Young's masterpiece. "Gee's Bend" is filled with
artists who have the liveliness and style to match Young: Mary Lee
Bendolph (b. 1935), Jessie Pettway (b. 1929), Flora Moore (b. 1951)
and 42 others. The only down note about the show is that quilting in
Gee's Bend--which may get regular ferry service soon, ending its
artistically fertile isolation--is on the wane. That's a pity. When
something this good is produced by a single community for so long and
so consistently, it ought to be nurtured to the max. Let's hope that
this exhibition can help--but without somehow ruining the earthy way
of life in Gee's Bend that seems essential to its remarkable art.
PHOTO
(COLOR): Beyond Bedding: Bendolph's design (above), Young's grid
(left), Pettway's bars
PHOTO
(COLOR): The Quilts of Gee's Bend: Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, Through March 2
PHOTO
(COLOR)
~~~~~~~~
By
Peter Plagens
|
|
Copyright of Newsweek is
the property of Newsweek and its content may not be copied or
e-mailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder`s express written permission. However, users may
print, download, or e-mail articles for individual use.
Source: Newsweek, 11/18/2002, Vol. 140
Issue 21, p78, 1p
Item: 7853290
|
|
|
|
|
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
|
Record: 2
|
|
Title:
|
On the American quilt.
|
|
Authors:
|
Taylor, Daphne
|
|
Source:
|
Mother Earth News; Dec98/Jan99 Issue 171, p14, 3p,
7c, 2bw
|
|
Document Type:
|
Article
|
|
Subject Terms:
|
NEEDLEWORK
QUILTING
|
|
Geographic Terms:
|
UNITED States
|
|
Abstract:
|
Provides information on American quilting. How the
technique of stitchery was passed on through generation; Definition
of a quilt.
|
|
Lexile:
|
990
|
|
Full Text Word Count:
|
1157
|
|
ISSN:
|
0027-1535
|
|
Accession Number:
|
1317596
|
|
Persistent link to this record:
|
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=1317596&db=mih
|
|
Cut and Paste:
|
<A
href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=1317596&db=mih">On
the American quilt.</A>
|
|
Database:
|
Middle Search Plus
|
|
|
|
|
Section: CRAFTS
Reflections of
quilter.
I came
to quilting five years ago. As a painter, I saw scraps of cloth as
another set of materials to cut, tear, compose, and create with. As a
child, I grew up within a dynamic circle of women whose work with the
needle and thread helped shape my creative vision. I always sewed. I
always painted. If I didn't do one, I did the other.
Each
season I would allow myself a week to sew to my heart's content,
creating one-of-a-kind clothes with tucks that celebrated shadow, a
bit of embroidery, and handmade buttons crafted from the local clay.
My wedding dress was made with the spirit of a sculptress, the chosen
silk bending, easing in under my fingers to create form in fabric.
Well into my thirties, I knew very well that composing with fabric
was no less a creative experience than the hours I spent painting the
landscape.
One
summer I picked up a $5 bag of cloth scraps at a yard sale along
Route 3 in Maine. It was a bag of prints and domestic aesthetics that
I would never have sought out, yet when spilled onto the floor, the
scraps showed a maze of design possibilities. I enjoyed this moment
visualizing the potential of these printed fabrics just as I have
always valued a limited palette in painting. I started to cut and
sew, creating a "collage" of cloth, in other words, a
quilt. Those next few days, I would paint outside until the sun was
too high, then rush back to the studio to cut and compose some more
with the fabrics. These bits of cloth were one woman's life stash,
and I remember bartering with her, her lip moving slightly as she
gave up this bag of memories. Textiles do tell stories; they refresh
our memories.
Two
summers later, I enjoyed thinking of these moments as I was finishing
one of my first quilt tops. I remember feeling that something visual
was lacking, that some flick of color to pull the eye across the
quilt was needed. My eye rested on a pale yellow satin that lay
nearby in a bag, a gift from my mother's best woman friend, who had
sent me her life's favorite remnants. It seemed to have been the hem
of some party dress, perhaps a luxurious slip. It was such a
quilter's moment (for me) to weave some of Mary's yellow fabric into
my quilt! I felt I was honoring some part of the special women in my
life, and it had happened so spontaneously. So it is with the quiet
powers of quilt making. Such times remind me of a passage from
Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen's book, The Quilters: women
and Domestic Art--An Oral History (Anchor Press, 1977):
"[T]he
technique of stitchery was passed on by exacting instruction, so also
was education in color and design. And the art was controlled and
handed down by women, usually mother, grandmother, or aunt. The best
elements of teaching were often combined over the construction of a
quilt: early and often instruction, tradition, discipline, planning
and completing a task, moral reinforcement. Quilting was a
virtue."
A
quilt by definition is the layering of fabrics that are then tied or
sewn together. It is magnificent to see how cultures throughout the
world have used this fabric art form to create visual masterpieces of
color, pattern, design, and personal story. Quilts were sewn to honor
births, deaths, weddings, and friendships. Others recorded historical
moments and major community events.
The
layering of fabric began with the basic need to provide warmth. It
grew into one of the most ceremonious art forms that we have.
Throughout
many communities today--urban, rural, and places in between--there is
a prick and a swoosh as needle and thread, fabric and batting,
embellishment and passion keep the art of quilt making thriving. No
longer the work of just our mothers and grandmothers, today's quilts
show the creative visions of men and women alike. Some are
traditional, honoring the patterns and techniques of the past. Other
contemporary quilters share greater vision with American painters and
sculptors, breaking down the boundaries between art and craft. For
me, quilting has been an exciting way to explore the history, family
stories, and rich needlework traditions that quilts represent.
It is
this complex layering of history and heart--part of every quilt--that
draws me in.
In
Quilting, (London, Batsford, 1978), Averil Colby reports that one of
the oldest recorded pieces of quilted material is a "carved
ivory figure of a pharaoh of the Egyptian First Dynasty, wearing a
supposedly quilted mantle, ca 3400 B.C." Quilt historian Lisa
Evans differs, and offers that "the oldest known quilted object
in the world is a first century tomb rug from Siberia." What
separates the two might well be an agreement on what
"quilting" means in the first place, rather than an error
in research. Undisputed, however is the superabundance of references
in medieval literature and trade journals to quilt making. Ms. Evans
goes on to describe some of the most colorful (if not the happiest)
examples:
"The
oldest known European quilts are three trapunto examples from Sicily.
Two, the Guicciardini set, show scenes from the Tristan legend and
were probably made in the 1390s. The third may have been made a few
years before that and also has Tristan and Isault in a central
medallion...with an overall border of the Seven Deadly Sins."
A
historic record of quilt making can also be found in the paintings of
the twelfth to sixteenth centuries, a time when quilting matured into
an art form as well as a means of keeping warm. And in an age when a
suit of armor cost the equivalent of a new home today, several layers
of quilted garments were used as an inexpensive and more flexible
armor substitute. Similar garments and quilted armor can be found in
Eastern cultures as well.
Left Golden Path of Ligh. 1998.
Machine-pieced, hand-quilted.
PHOTO
(COLOR): Above: Maine landscape with quilt.
PHOTO
(COLOR): Houses and Still Lifes, 1995. Machine-pieced.
PHOTOS
(COLOR): Irena's Quilt, 1996. Hand applique and embroidery,
machine-pieced, cotton fabrics.
Daphne Taylor, holding
Embellished Crazy Quilt; 1995.
PHOTO
(COLOR): Machine-pieced, embellished with hand embroidery, beading,
and applique.
PHOTOS
(COLOR): Clockwise from left: Courthouse Steps Variation 1996.
Machine-pieced, hand-quilted. Maple leaf and Pulses, 1995.
Machine-pieced, hand-appliqued. January Flannel with Plaids, 1997.
Machine-pieced. Rail Fence
Variation, 1996. Machine-pieced, hand-quilted. The center quilt is
entitled Birds Over Gramercy, 1997.
PHOTO
(COLOR): Hand-pieced appliqued and quilted.
~~~~~~~~
By
Daphne Taylor
Daphne
Taylor teaches drawing and fiber arts at the Friends Seminary in New
York. Currently, there are over 20, 000 Web sites devoted to
quilting, but the most comprehensive we found is the World Wide
Quilting Page which can be found at
http://ttsw,com/MainQuiltingPage.html.
|
|
Copyright of Mother
Earth News is the property of Ogden
Publishing and its content may not be copied or e-mailed to
multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright
holder`s express written permission. However, users may print,
download, or e-mail articles for individual use.
Source: Mother Earth News, Dec98/Jan99
Issue 171, p14, 3p
Item: 1317596
|
|
|
|
|
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
|
Record: 3
|
|
Title:
|
Imagine.
|
|
Source:
|
American Girl; Jan/Feb98, Vol. 6 Issue 1, p49, 1p,
1c
|
|
Document Type:
|
Article
|
|
Subject Terms:
|
AFRICAN Americans -- History
|
|
Abstract:
|
Presents an imaginative scenario on an experience
where you participate in the activity of quilting a quilt in the
period 1926, which would commemorate the first Negro History Week in
the United States.
|
|
ISSN:
|
1062-7812
|
|
Accession Number:
|
45985
|
|
Persistent link to this record:
|
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=45985&db=mih
|
|
Cut and Paste:
|
<A
href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=45985&db=mih">Imagine.</A>
|
|
Database:
|
Middle Search Plus
|
|
|
|
|
Record: 4
|
|
Title:
|
Quilts of tradition, art of today.
|
|
Source:
|
Americas; Sep/Oct97, Vol. 49 Issue 5, p5, 1/2p, 2c
|
|
Document Type:
|
Article
|
|
Subject Terms:
|
QUILTS -- Exhibitions
|
|
Abstract:
|
Announces a major traveling exhibition called `To
Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions' at the Smithsonian's
National Museum of the American Indian on October 19, 1997.
Highlights of the exhibition; Collaborators of the show; Other venues
of the exhibition.
|
|
Lexile:
|
1250
|
|
Full Text Word Count:
|
374
|
|
ISSN:
|
0379-0940
|
|
Accession Number:
|
9710062480
|
|
Persistent link to this record:
|
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9710062480&db=mih
|
|
Cut and Paste:
|
<A
href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9710062480&db=mih">Quilts
of tradition, art of today.</A>
|
|
Database:
|
Middle Search Plus
|
|
|
|
|
Section: Ojo!
|
QUILTS OF
TRADITION, ART OF TODAY
|
A
MAJOR TRAVELING exhibition, To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting
Traditions, premieres at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the
American Indian on October 19. More than forty quilts from Native
communities throughout North America and Hawaii will be showcased.
And, in celebration of the art of quilt making, the museum has
commissioned a special quilt for its exhibition. Designed and pieced
by Native quilters, it will become the first Native American quilt in
the museum's permanent collection.
The
exhibition is a collaboration of the National Museum of the American
Indian, the Michigan State University Museum, the Smithsonian
Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, and Atlatl, a nonprofit
organization that promotes the arts in Native communities. On view at
the museum's Heye Center in New York City through January 4, 1998,
the exhibition will then travel to eight cities on a two-year
nationwide tour.
THE
WORKS OF thirteen contemporary Mexican artists are showcased in a new
traveling exhibition, Mexico Ahora: Punto de Partida/Mexico Now:
Point of Departure. The first and largest U.S. touring exhibition to
highlight the contemporary visual arts of Mexico, the show includes
painting, photography, sculpture, and site-specific installations.
Art
critic Osvaldo Sanchez writes that a decisive factor in defining this
show was the simultaneous arrival in Mexico of a large number of
foreign artists and the return home of Mexican artists who had
studied abroad. "This group was imbued with a more conceptual
approach, which accelerated the transition from representative
painting to more analytical, postmodern devices such as manipulation
and intertextuality," says Sanchez.
The
exhibition's venues will include the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte,
North Carolina (September 20-December 13) the Wood Street Galleries,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (March 28 May 30, 1998); the Chicago
Cultural Center (June 20 August 23, 1998); and the Delaware Art
Museum in Wilmington (September 19-November 28, 1998).
Organized
by the Ohio Arts Council and funded in part by the U.S./Mexico Fund
for Culture, the exhibition's national tour is sponsored by Philip
Morris Companies.
Diego
Toledo's Sin mas [Without More], 1995, electrical system, wood,
acrylic, steel, plastic laminate, left, and Melanie Smith's Orange
Lush I, 1994, mixed media,
above, are part of a traveling
exhibition of Mexican art
|
|
Copyright of Americas is
the property of Organization of American States and its content may
not be copied or e-mailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv
without the copyright holder`s express written permission. However,
users may print, download, or e-mail articles for individual use.
Source: Americas, Sep/Oct97, Vol. 49
Issue 5, p5, 1p
Item: 9710062480
|
|
|
|
|
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
|
Record: 5
|
|
Title:
|
Quiltmaker pioneers improvisational, exuberant
patterns.
|
|
Authors:
|
Popiel, Leslie Albrecht
|
|
Source:
|
Christian Science Monitor; 9/26/95, Vol. 87 Issue
211, p13, 1c
|
|
Document Type:
|
Entertainment Review
|
|
Subject Terms:
|
QUILTS -- Exhibitions
NANCY Crow (Exhibition)
|
|
Geographic Terms:
|
WASHINGTON (D.C.)
|
|
Abstract:
|
Reviews the art quilt exhibits at the
Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art
titled "Nancy Crow: Improvisational Quilts". Interview with
artist Nancy Crow about quilting; Description of works.
|
|
Lexile:
|
1190
|
|
Full Text Word Count:
|
653
|
|
ISSN:
|
0882-7729
|
|
Accession Number:
|
9510102793
|
|
Persistent link to this record:
|
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9510102793&db=mih
|
|
Cut and Paste:
|
<A href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9510102793&db=mih">Quiltmaker
pioneers improvisational, exuberant patterns.</A>
|
|
Database:
|
Middle Search Plus
|
|
|
|
|
Section: Arts
|
QUILTMAKER
PIONEERS IMPROVISATIONAL, EXUBERANT PATTERNS
|
Dateline:
WASHINGTON
Nancy
Crow's quilts are not the kind of quilts you might find in your
grandmother's attic.
"Nancy
Crow Improvisational Quilts," an exhibit of 33 art quilts at the
Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art,
is an exuberant, colorful collection, expressing the artist's joy in
working with colors and fabrics without the overwhelming regularity
(and sometimes tediousness) of traditional quilting.
"Quiltmaking
has its own history of techniques that are frankly obsessive,
unrelenting and too time-consuming for most people or just too
tedious for today's hurried-up lifestyle," writes the Baltimore,
Ohio-based artist. "As a child, I loved the processes of
cut-paper work and gluing cut-outs onto another sheet of paper. It
follows that I loved cutting shapes out of fabric and piecing those
shapes together. As I developed greater sophistication in creating
forms, I longed for a way to work that did not involve rigid
pattern-making."
Crow
began her artistic career weaving, which she studied for her master
of fine arts degree. But upon seeing a particularly vibrant antique
quilt, she was struck by the beauty, boldness, and craftmanship of
this particular piece, which was a black, green, and red Bear's Paw
design. Her love - and affinity - for quilting grew as she spent time
with quilting groups and began her own quiltmaking during the 1970s.
Today,
she is known as an innovator and pioneer in this increasingly popular
field, using the quilts as canvases to express emotions, just as in
other more "recognized" forms of art.
While
some of Crow's works do appear to be carefully planned like
traditional quilts, her method for piecing them together reveals the
improvisational quality of her quilts. "... I cut a shape and
pin it up on my great white void of a work-wall. I react!" Crow
explains. "I cut another shape and pin it up. I don't like it,
and I throw it away. Without hesitation, I cut another shape and
another and on and on, pinning and trying and moving shapes
around."
The
exhibit at the Renwick includes quilts from four different series.
The "Linear Studies" series is variations on pieced strips.
The wavy lines are accented by the stitching (done by other
quilters), giving the quilts texture and added definition. The
"Color Blocks" series plays on the basic "one-patch"
design in quilting, giving more emphasis to the interplay between
Crow's vibrant hand-dyed fabrics.
In the
"Bow Tie" series, Crow departs even further from
traditional quilting; some quilts are one huge "picture"
composed of irregular shapes, stitching, and unusual color
combinations. Other "bow tie" quilts, produced earlier in
the series, are more regular in pattern, composed of blocks and
diagonals.
"Chinese
Souls" is perhaps the most intriguing series. It was inspired by
an event Crow witnessed while visiting China as an exchange artist in
1990. Crow saw about 60 teenage boys, bound in heavy ropes, being
loaded onto trucks to be taken to their executions for petty crimes.
"The
bull's-eye embroidery and hand- quilting represent the ropes tied
around the soul, and all of the colors represent the
individuals," Crow explains.
Crow
seems to be trying to view the circular "souls" from
different perspectives. In "Chinese Souls #5," the swirls
are grouped in 25 blocks of 16 many souls from a distance. But "Chinese
Souls #10" studies only four "souls"; the black,
white, and red swirls are so large that only one complete swirl fits
onto the quilt.
"Nancy
Crow Improvisational Quilts" is on display at the Smithsonian's
Renwick Gallery until Jan. 1. The exhibit was organized by
independent curator Penny McMorris.
PHOTO
(COLOR): `LINEAR STUDY #4' Nancy Crow's pieced strips and wavy lines
represent one of her four series at the Smithsonian's Renwick
Gallery., COURTESY OF NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART/RENWICK GALLERY
~~~~~~~~
By
Leslie Albrecht Popiel, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
|
|
Copyright of Christian
Science Monitor is the property of Christian
Science Publishing Society and its content may not be copied or
e-mailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder`s express written permission. However, users may
print, download, or e-mail articles for individual use.
Source: Christian Science Monitor,
9/26/95, Vol. 87 Issue 211, p13
Item: 9510102793
|
|
|
|
|
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
|
Record: 6
|
|
Title:
|
Quilting a keepsake snowflake.
|
|
Authors:
|
Shano, Lisa A.
|
|
Source:
|
Hopscotch; Dec93/Jan94, Vol. 5 Issue 4, p41, 5p, 1
diagram, 1bw
|
|
Document Type:
|
Article
|
|
Subject Terms:
|
PILLOWS
QUILTING
|
|
Abstract:
|
Presents instructions on how to quilt a snowflake
pillow. Required materials; Procedure.
|
|
ISSN:
|
1044-0488
|
|
Accession Number:
|
9403310213
|
|
Persistent link to this record:
|
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9403310213&db=mih
|
|
Cut and Paste:
|
<A
href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9403310213&db=mih">Quilting
a keepsake snowflake.</A>
|
|
Database:
|
Middle Search Plus
|
|
|
|
|
Record: 7
|
|
Title:
|
Sewing up a storm. (cover story)
|
|
Authors:
|
Yamasaki, T.
|
|
Source:
|
People; Spring90, Vol. 33, p120, 1p, 1c
|
|
Document Type:
|
Article
|
|
Subject Terms:
|
QUILTING
|
|
Abstract:
|
Discusses the growing interest in quilting as an
art medium and the new techniques and ways of displaying quilts that
has helped fuel their popularity as a way to speak out on national
and personal issues.
|
|
ISSN:
|
0093-7673
|
|
Accession Number:
|
9004020243
|
|
Persistent link to this record:
|
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9004020243&db=mih
|
|
Cut and Paste:
|
<A
href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9004020243&db=mih">Sewing
up a storm.</A>
|
|
Database:
|
Middle Search Plus
|
|
|
|
|
Record: 8
|
|
Title:
|
quilting
|
|
Source:
|
Columbia Encyclopedia
|
|
Accession Number:
|
IXBquilting
|
|
Persistent link to this record:
|
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=IXBquilting&db=mih
|
|
Cut and Paste:
|
<A
href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=IXBquilting&db=mih">quilting</A>
|
|
Database:
|
Middle Search Plus
|
|
|
|
|
quilting,
form of needlework, almost always created by women, most of them
anonymous, in which two layers of fabric on either side of an
interlining (batting) are sewn together, usually with a pattern of
back or running (quilting) stitches that hold the layers together.
This method of securing warmth in covering and clothing has been
practiced for centuries in N Asia and Europe. Quilting has been a
feature of embroidery in the form of raised work. It was a
distinctive type of needlework in pioneer American homes, at first
mainly utilitarian, later more ornamental. Quilts were usually of the
pieced, or patchwork, type until c.1750, when the appliquéd, or
laid-on, quilt and the monotone quilt decorated by trapunto (padding
or cording) became popular. A fad for quilted petticoats for women
and coattails for men was at its height from 1688 to 1714. About 1830
appliquéd box quilts, made with tops of individually pieced,
generally geometric patterns, became dominant.
While
some 18th-cent. examples are extant, the American quilt as art and
craft is largely a 19th-century phenomenon. Dozens of traditional
patchwork patterns have evolved, such as Sunburst, Sawtooth, Log
Cabin, Schoolhouse, and Bear's Paw, and have continued in use well
into the 20th cent. The quilts of certain American groups are
especially compelling works of art. Among the most notable of these
were made by the Amish (particularly c.1870–1935) who created
utilitarian quilts with geometric designs in areas of unpatterned
color—deep, vibrant, and close-toned—now much sought after by
collectors. The Victorian period marked the popularity of the crazy
quilt, in which asymmetrical designs were made of patches of various
textiles in a multiplicity of sizes and shapes often connected by
decorative stitching.
Part
of the American folk
art tradition, quilting is still practiced
by Southern mountainfolk, the Pennsylvania Dutch,
and other rural dwellers and has been revived
as ornamental needlework. Traditional African-American
quilts have been particularly praised for their
bold, asymmetrical designs and brilliant colors,
often complemented by the use of tied knots.
Of particular interest are quilts (1930s–present)
created by the women of Gee's Bend, an historically
black Alabama community—jazzy, colorful works
in irregular geometric patterns of remarkable
abstract power that have been widely exhibited,
e.g., at the Whitney Museum of American Art,
NYC (2002). The quilt has also been used as
a form of textile art, as in the work of Faith
Ringgold, who blends African-American tradition
with contemporary art. Quilting also has a utilitarian
function in modern life with machine-quilted
materials used for wearing apparel and in interior
decoration, particularly for bed and couch covers.
See P.
Cooper and N. B. Buferd, The
Quilters: Women and Domestic Art (1978); M. Walker, The Complete Guide to Quiltmaking
(1986); C. L. Mosey, Contemporary
Quilts from Traditional Patterns (1988).
|
|
Source: Columbia Encyclopedia
Item: IXBquilting
|
|
|
|
|
Top of Page
|
|
Back
|