San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

05/06/2020

Next up on our Artist Spotlight Interviews is Michelle Wilson. You may remember meeting her and collaborator Anne Beck at San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles in early 2018. Together they work as the Rhinoceros Project.

michellewilsonprojects.com/
rhinocerosproject.tumblr.com/

— What drew you to the fiber art medium over others?
"Fiber art was never an art form I studied in undergraduate art school. The beginnings of what I know today as a fiber artist was knowledge I learned from my mother; and like many art students, we’re convinced that that the teachings of our mothers are not “real” or “serious” art. I trained as a painter and a printmaker, and while I still make prints, I’ve abandoned painting as a practice entirely. I had to unlearn that my mother’s knowledge wasn’t real.

What finally convinced me that I not a painter was how still I had to be to paint. I’m a person who’s almost always in motion as my natural state; I talk with my hands (even on the phone); I pace when I have to wait somewhere for something; I’m a master fidgeter. Sitting or standing still to paint left my mind wandering, I wasn’t able to focus on the work. When my hands and body are engaged, I’m present, I’m calmer, I feel more like myself. I know there are painters who are very physical, but that wasn’t something I could tap into.

But making paper is very physical. So much of what I do is rooted in body knowledge and memory. It’s said a person must pull 1000 sheets of handmade paper before they can make consistent ones. I’ve been making paper in some form since 2005, I’ve probably passed my first 1000 sheets a few years ago. So my body remembers the movement, it’s almost like a dance I’ve practiced over and over again and now I don’t think about the motions consciously."

Read the full interview at https://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/blog/michelle-wilson

05/05/2020

Today is #GivingTuesdayNow, a global day of giving! Give five on 5/5 to support SJMQT. Here are five ways show your #quiltandtextilelove:
1. Donate at https://bit.ly/2zFpIFB
2. Share our social media posts with your family and friends
3. Let us know why you support SJMQT on social media
4. Make sure to use #GivingTuesdayNow and #quiltandtextilelove in your posts
5. Join our mailing list at http://eepurl.com/djq1r5

05/04/2020

May the 4th Be With You! Get your Star Wars geek on and visit our #MuseumFromHome page to create your favorite characters with your kids in just a few steps. Just go to sjquiltmuseum.org/museumfromhome and download the Printable PDF! Enjoy!

05/04/2020

#MondayArtworkSpotlight: Today we’re highlighting another fantastic group of artworks in Inside Out: Seeing Through Clothing: “Dress Tents,” a series of wearable architecture installations and photographs created by Bay Area artists Robin Lasser (@rjlasser on Instagram) and Adrienne Pao (@adriennepao on Instagram).

Since 2005, Lasser + Pao have designed their large-scale Dress Tents in response to different geographical and cultural contexts, from the hula culture of Hawaii to the military history of Russia. Each site-specific work features a female performer occupying the top part of the dress, while visitors and participants can enter the lower tent portion, which often contains music, images, or other forms of storytelling that offer a more intimate and interactive understanding of place.

Swipe through to see a few Dress Tents on display in Inside Out:

Ms. Yekaterinburg: Camera Obscura Dress Tent, Church on the Blood, Yekaterinburg, Russia, 2011
Hula Girl Dress Tent, Waikiki, Oahu, 2017
Sari Dress Tent, City Hall, San Francisco, 2018 (exterior view)
Sari Dress Tent, City Hall, San Francisco, 2018 (interior view)

#MuseumFromHome #SmallMuseumBigLove
#sjmqt #textiles #fiberart

05/03/2020

Happy #NationalTextileDay!

In honor of this national holiday we’d like to highlight this #TextOnTextiles moment: a three panel piece, Brisbane 1, 2 &, 3, made in 2009 by Alison Muir (@Textile_expressions on Instagram).

This piece was created in response to a carrier spilling oil into the Brisbane River in Australia, and adjacent coastal beaches in March 2009.

Share your own #TextOnTextiles moment by using the hashtag! #MuseumFromHome #PassItOn

05/01/2020

Did you know that this Sunday is #NationalTextileDay? On May 3rd we'll be honoring this national holiday with the hashtag #TextOnTextiles highlighting fabric-based works with text!

For more info on #TextOnTextiles:
https://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/text-on-textiles

This Diner Quilt from our Permanent Collection (Unknown Maker, Cotton, Machine pieced, hand quilted) has us longing for a day where we can support our restaurants, diners and other eateries again. Take a closer look to see phrases such as, "Home Cooking," "Blue Plate Special" and "Cooked to order."

Start thinking about a fabric work in your life that shows text and remember to post it for National Textile Day! #MuseSocial #MuseumFromHome #PassItOn

04/29/2020

#WednesdayArtistSpotlight

Kira Dominguez Hultgren is a Bay Area-based textile Artist who currently has a solo exhibition at San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, entitled I was India: Embroidering Exoticism. Kira is a recent graduate of California College of the Arts, earning a dual degree MFA/MA in Fine Arts and Visual and Critical Studies. Dominguez Hultgren is represented by Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco, and she is a Graduate Fellow at The Headlands Center for the Arts where she is preparing for upcoming shows at the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek and the de Young Fine Art Museum of San Francisco.

—What drew you to the fiber art medium over others?
—Weaving is about storytelling through material and structure. Rather than creating a linear narrative, the act of weaving leaves in its wake a web of creative deconstruction that is never a finished statement. Just think of Penelope waiting for Odysseus, unweaving by night what she wove in the day. Even without the weaver’s hand, my materials – wool, zip ties, tubing, coaxial cables – are working against one another, actively deconstructing what appears as narrative continuity when a fabric is pulled from the loom. Weaving, as it tells, compels some material to sink to the bottom, while other material rises to the surface. Some strands act only as a support, while other strands steals the spotlight. To weave with competing unequal materials is to reflect a lived experience of ongoing U.S. colonialism supported by unequal histories. Some histories go unheard, unseen, while other histories seemingly become the whole story. I want to tell those histories which need to be heard, but have yet to be said: stories from weavers such as Juanita (Asdzáá Tl'ógí, Navajo, 1845-1910); or stories of living between races when miscegenation was a crime such as my grandmother’s story of growing up Hawaiian, Black, Indian, and White.

Read the full interview at:
www.sjquiltmuseum.org/blog/kira-dominguez-hultgren

04/28/2020

Next Tuesday 5/5/20 is #GivingTuesdayNow, a global day of giving! Give five on 5/5 to support SJMQT. Here are five ways show your #quiltandtextilelove:
1. Donate at https://bit.ly/2zFpIFB on or before 5/5/20
2. Share our social media posts with your family and friends
3. Let us know why you support SJMQT on social media
4. Make sure to use #GivingTuesdayNow and #quiltandtextilelove in your posts
5. Join our mailing list at http://eepurl.com/djq1r5

04/28/2020

We're teaming up with Modern Quilt Guild, Quilt Alliance, Studio Art Quilt Associates, Surface Design Association and International Quilt Study Center & Museum to bring you "Textile Talks."

Please join us Wednesday, April 29th 11am PST/ 2pm EST as SAQA and the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts presents "Conversations with the Artists: 3D Expressions."

The panel will be moderated by Evelyn Penman and Martha Sielman. Artists Shannon Dion, Judy Martin, Betty Busby, and Patty Kennedy-Zafred will speak about creating three-dimensional art quilts. We'll be discussing the process, techniques, and inspiration behind their work. This event is free and open to the public.

*Register early as there is limited attendance!

Register here: bit.ly/2ztbCqO

04/27/2020

#MondayArtworkSpotlight

Today we’re spotlighting TERRAIN (2015-2016) by Bay Area artist and choreographer Kate Mitchell (@katemitchell9259 on Instagram). This installation features several costumes originally worn in a fashion and dance performance of the same name, which premiered at ODC Theater in San Francisco on November 18, 2016.

Inspired by the new terrain of her aging body, Mitchell created intricately textured costumes that recall natural textures and forms, from the ridges of sand on a shore to the rivulets of rushing water. Paired with photographer Alessandra Mello’s abstracted images of the artist’s body, these costumes connect the patterns and textures of the female form to the natural terrain surrounding all of us.

For Mitchell, “These projects have been part of my desire to find a clearer understanding of what is outside of women, to come to a sense of the strength and beauty of what is inside us, and to express those discoveries—as unresolved as they still may be—with fabrics, photographs, words, and dance, all interwoven together.”

http://www.katemitchell.org/

#MuseumFromHome #SmallMuseumBigLove #sjmqt #textiles #fiberart

04/26/2020

We're teaming up with Modern Quilt Guild, Quilt Alliance, Studio Art Quilt Associates, Surface Design Association and International Quilt Study Center & Museum to bring you "Textile Talks."

Please join us Wednesday, April 29th 11am PST/ 2pm EST as SAQA and the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts presents "Conversations with the Artists: 3D Expressions."

The panel will be moderated by Evelyn Penman and Martha Sielman. Artists Shannon Dion, Judy Martin, Betty Busby, and Patty Kennedy-Zafred will speak about creating three-dimensional art quilts. We'll be discussing the process, techniques, and inspiration behind their work. This event is free and open to the public.

*Register early as there is limited attendance!

Register here: bit.ly/2ztbCqO

04/24/2020

In honor of National Volunteer Week, the Board and Staff of SJMQT would like to thank all of its volunteers. Thank you for your time, care, and dedication. We appreciate you so much! #NationalVolunteerWeek #SmallMuseumBigLove #SJMQT

04/22/2020

#WednesdayArtistSpotlight

Tricia Royal was the Artist in Residence at San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles in the Fall of 2019.
During her residency the SJMQT staff would joke that Tricia’s work was an antidote to a gloomy day. Whenever we needed to brighten our moods, we’d visit the AIR hallway and see her bright, neon colors in classic quilt patterns and suddenly feel uplifted and reinvigorated. Hope this does the same for you!

—What drew you to the fiber art medium over others?
—Fibers and fabrics have been a constant in my life, since childhood; I learned to sew when I was 11 and have never stopped. At this point it is the medium that feels the most natural, the medium over which I have the most control due to years of experience and practice. Fibers are a constant in all of our lives, with us from the cradle to the grave, and have long been the medium to which women were restricted; my feminist leanings have cleaved me to this medium as well. I feel really strongly about textiles and fiber art and fiber artists being taken seriously as artists and as an art form, as legitimate as paint or sculpture. There’s a sense of defiance in me, a demand that fiber work not be sidelined.

Read the full interview here:
https://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/blog/tricia-royal

04/21/2020

Chúng tôi chắc chắn rằng bạn nhận thức được nhu cầu lớn về mặt nạ, từ những anh hùng ở tuyến đầu đến bạn và gia đình bạn. Bạn có thể tạo sự khác biệt trong sự thiếu hụt mặt nạ bằng cách tặng mặt nạ tự chế. Chúng tôi đang hợp tác với Trung tâm Y tế Valley [Đảm bảo gắn thẻ họ với @] để tập trung nỗ lực quyên góp của chúng tôi. Xem hướng dẫn và thông tin quyên góp dưới đây. Hãy theo dõi các bài đăng tiếp theo về các hướng dẫn mặt nạ DIY khác (bao gồm các tùy chọn không cần may!)

Trung tâm y tế thung lũng- https://vmcfoundation.org/masks/

04/21/2020

To lighten and brighten your day (and feed) some #MuseumSunshine from #SJMQT!🌼 Unknown maker; Sunburst Quilt, 1930-1955; Cotton.

#MuseumFromHome #textiles #quilting

04/20/2020

#MondayArtworkSpotlight

Laura Raboff’s (@lauraredshoes on Instagram) Cricula installation in "Inside Out: Seeing Through Clothing." Clothing imagery has long been a part of Berkeley-based artist Laura Raboff’s work, although her use of natural materials in Cricula signals an exciting new direction in her practice. The lacey, golden material of this installation is composed of cricula, a kind of silkworm cocoon harvested from cashew trees in Indonesia.

The difficult and delicate process of creating each dress involved cleaning each individual cocoon, ironing them flat, and then stitching them together with gold thread into lightweight, dress-like forms. Each dress is carefully constructed to allow light to filter through and shadows to intertwine with the light.

According to the artist, these works evoke unspoken memory, and a layering and synthesizing of complicated feelings that are sometimes at odds with each other.

#MuseumFromHome #SmallMuseumBigLove

04/17/2020

Donate

Do you have 20 minutes today? You can make a difference by making masks for yourself, your family, and our friends at Valley Medical Center. We've sifted through mountains of info on the web for the best tutorials. You can donate your masks to Valley Medical Center at https://vmcfoundation.org/masks/. Can't sew but want to help? Donate to our friends at Sacred Heart Community Service. You can donate here: https://sacredheartcs.org/donate/

Mask tutorials:
(For our advanced sewers): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-vIyLMgUhg

(For our intermediate sewers:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgHrnS6n4iA

(For beginners & no-sew options suitable for home use):
https://emergencydesigncollective.com/field-notes/make-a-mask

Where to donate masks:
Valley Medical Center: https://vmcfoundation.org/masks/

Where to donate help/money:
https://sacredheartcs.org/donate/

Your donation impacts more than 70,000 children and families living in poverty in Silicon Valley.

04/17/2020

Our group of dedicated volunteers are finding ways to stay positive during shelter in place. Ruth, a long-time volunteer, recently finished her mini-quilt "Unicorn" for a gift to a friend. (The pattern was developed in a class with Philippa Naylor!) Here is message from Ruth about how she's handling recent changes:

"With the current situation I feel pretty good that I'm getting up in the morning (coffee is a definite requirement!) and moving through my day, getting various things done however small.
The uncertainty of how things will go and lack of consistent information regarding the possible course of the disease and its multitude of impacts are enough to stop a horse. So don't feel badly (if you haven't done much).

We've decided that as the weather warms up we'll put our garden bench out in the front yard so we can wave to folks walking in the neighborhood. So many changes, some of them bringing us together in new (old, in terms of a "front porch") ways. We'll get through with each other's help and support!"
#SJMQT #SmallMuseumBigLove #MuseumVolunteers

04/16/2020

Shirley Cunningham, fabric artist

Did you see the Finlayson Gallery exhibition, Never Ending Thread at SJMQT? Artist Shirley Cunningham retells the Jewish creation story through her exhibition entitled Towb— a collection of exquisite tapestries and transformed vintage garments through painterly stitches and embellishment. As we come to the end of Passover, we wanted to make sure we acknowledge the vast cultural backgrounds of our artists. To find out more of Shirley's body of work, her concept and process, check out the video here:

https://vimeo.com/241769723

This is "Shirley Cunningham, fabric artist" by Pro-Story.com on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

04/15/2020

Our museum may be closed right now, but our virtual doors are wide open! You can explore our exhibitions, meet artists, and more on our website: https://www.sjquiltmuseum.org. Feeling the love? You can donate to our Spring Appeal here: https://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/make-a-donation.

04/15/2020

Artist Spotlight: Ronit Shalem — San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

#WednesdayArtistSpotlight

Ronit Shalem is a Bay Area artist and frequent visitor to San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. We were captivated by her hypnotic process and textile influence- it's a real feast for the eyes! You can find more of her work here: http://ronitshalem.com/

—What drew you to the fiber art medium over others?
—I’m fascinated by ancient arts in general, especially the local iconography in the form of artistic language that represents community and traditions. In particular, I admire the hard labor involved in textile making, the stories which are hidden in the patterns, the representation of women and sisterhood in textile making.

—What has surprised you about your art practice since the Shelter in Place order?
—I am a people person. Before SIP, friends would drop by all day long to visit while I’m working and I love it! However, I do realize that somehow these days, I need more quiet in order to concentrate on my work.

Read the full interview here: https://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/blog/ronit-shalem

Ronit Shalem is a Bay Area artist and frequent visitor to San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. We were captivated by her hypnotic process and textile influence- it's a real feast for the eyes! You can find more of her work here: