Nelson Gallery, displaying fabric works

I had stumbled across the Nelson gallery last Friday, as I was going to visit our design advisor. I really wasn’t expecting to walk into an exhibition of quilts, and other African goodies but was very pleased that I did. I took a quick walk through the small gallery, and was interested to find relatively simple quilts on display.

Before reading the exhibition wall text, I was surprised that UC Davis art community would find these simplistic patterns, with naturally dyed fabrics of any interest. Of course though as in academic I have been proven wrong time-and-time again, the significance was deeper than I had considered.

My mother was waiting outside for me in the parking lot behind the art building. I raced out of the gallery to find her, and quickly persuaded her to come inside and check it out. My mother is a quilter, and I am constantly urging her to display her work properly. It was difficult to tell in that gallery what different methods could be employed to display these intricate textile works, but it seemed that they were hung on two metal/wood dowels. Several of the quilts had spotlights, seeming to be incandescent bulbs. I wonder which types of bulbs should best be used for illuminating works like these, especially since they [the fabrics] were made using such delicate weaving and dying techniques.

In the quilt, Sharecropper’s Masterpiece, I couldn’t help but think of a candy store, with the thin candy-pinstripes that reverberated through out the piece. Yet, there was more integrity to the work, as the piece work appeared to be in a woven pattern. The orientation of the small pieces, although each was cut from the same fabric, differed greatly, repeating in orientation at every other placement. The obvious repetition was precise, not only the placement, and the initial cut (I could imagine the artist measuring the squares, and using a tool to ensure that the lines were at a certain angle) of the fabric showed extreme patience and dedication to the work. The title suits, as it could be, the Quilter’s Masterpiece as well.