Quilts as Art...

Did you know Mary Jo’s Cloth Store is visited several times a week by Tour Buses? Why you ask? In a word, QUILTERS! All of our quilting clients know how their guilds are gaga over our vast selection and breadth of color and texture that can be used in all of their “Artful Masterpieces”. Some people may see a quilt as something to keep them warm on a chilly night. Yes that is true, however a quilter knows the "Alchemy and Art" that go into each and every quilt.
We have made it our goal over the years to feature the newest and the latest fabrics as well as the old standards and historic prints you have all come to love.We will keep up our end of the bargain, supplying you with great“Cloth” and we expect you to continue to create your works of Quilted works of Art.
I was reading about an amazing Quilt Exhibition the other day.
The Philadelphia Art Museum is featuring a fresh look at the quilting traditions from the community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, introducing new artists and motifs in works dating from the early twentieth century through 2005. WOW, Cool!
“The quilts are hung thematically in blocks according to their general schemes. These include "Housetops," based on concentric squares (a design known elsewhere as "Log Cabin"); the stepped pattern called "Bricklayer, Blocks and Strips," often made from old trousers; and "Medallions," which feature a bold central motif inside a contrasting frame. The "Medallions" scheme often produces energetic juxtapositions and contrasts of the kind common to modernist painting. For instance, Loretta P. Bennett created such a design from a stack of alternating bland and red wedges framed by heavy white bars against a black ground.One shouldn't try to valorize one art medium -- in this case, textile -- by comparing it to a more prestigious one such as painting. Yet one can't help imagining how some of these quilts might be perceived if they were transcribed into pigment on canvas. I'm thinking particularly of a red, white and black masterpiece by Mary Lee Bendolph, the exhibition's signature image.
Most important,the Gee's Bend quilts put paid to the canard that abstraction is difficult or unnatural. For these academically untutored artists, abstraction is as natural as breathing.”
If you cannot make the exhibition log onto the online photo rich site “Gees Bend Quilt makers”.
We all have so much in this world that is true unadulterated inspiration.