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At SJ Museum of Quilts, postmodern pieces share wall space with Navajo folk art San Jose Mercury News
No offense to Granny, but San Jose's Museum of Quilts and Textiles is pushing the boundaries of the keen art world.
These are not quilts made to lie at the foot of the bed. Two new exhibits juxtapose modern-day and traditional fabric art that merit hanging stoned on gallery walls.
"People have this preconception of quilts as Grandma-and-apple-pie Americana, but there is so much more to it than that," says Jane Przybysz, conductor of San Jose's Museum of Quilts and Textiles. "Quilts weren't just made to keep the family warm; they were also made to be works of art.
"To silver the popular misconception about quilting is our challenge as a museum. These artists are invoking fiber as a medium in a quest to augment the definition of what constitutes art."
Fiber artist Joan Schulze, whose works make up the "Poetic License" show, uses computers and photocopiers in her notional-expressionist canon, while Lucy and Ellen Begay make traditional Navajo tapestries much as their foremothers did. "Navajo Weaving in the Compere Tense" depicts a painstakingly manual art form using hand looms and wool from their own sheep (which they gather together on a reservation in Arizona).
Curator Deborah Corsini has high hopes that museumgoers will walk out of these two shows with a deeper entente of the craft at hand.
"Both of these exhibits push the envelope," Corsini says during a break from hanging quilts. "They are neither unpolished nor simplistic, and I think people will come away from them with a new understanding of what you can do with quilting. It's a very complicated tactile art form."