LE08 - Agony/Ecstasy: 'The Artist & The Quilt' Project (1978)
Thursday, February 22, 2024
7:00pm – 8:00pm East Coast USA Time
Member Price until Nov. 30: $14.40
Non-Member Price: $18.00
NOTE: Materials fees are required for some workshops. These fees are paid directly to faculty and are not part of your registration fee.
The whole thing should've taken two years. When the dust settled in 1983, a full decade after the concept was born, many of the women involved in The Artist & The Quilt project weren't speaking. Sunk costs, disrupted careers, bad reviews — and for what? The idea: Get 12 major female artists (Ringgold, Neel, Schapiro) to make work, then have 12 quilters render their work in quilt form to prove to the United Nations during their 'International Year of the Woman' (1975) that quilts are art too. But doesn't that approach reinforce the false hierarchy between "mere" quilters and "real" artists? Arguably, yes. Is it borderline cringe to have quiltmakers "prove" their worth by copying paintings or sculptures in fabric? Maybe, yeah. But was The Artist & The Quilt project driven by passionate women trying to make a worthy point and is the whole mess fascinating with implications for literally everyone making quilts today? Mary Fons thinks so, and in this deeply researched debut lecture, we may find out why. ASL services provided through generous support from HandiQuilter.
