Category Archives: New York Times

Gee’s Bend Quilts and…..printmaking?!

You are probably familiar with the Gee’s Bend Quilts – the quilts created by women from Gee’s Bend, in rural Alabama, U.S.A..  The colourful fabric works have been favourably – and appropriately – compared to works by Henri Matisse and Paul Klee.

Gee's Bend quilts, de Young Museum, 2017, T. Vatrt image

Gee’s Bend quilts, de Young Museum, 2017, T. Vatrt image

This Smithsonian article briefly outlines the history of the quilts, and the people living in their isolated community of Gee’s Bend, also known as Boykin, Alabama. Why was I surprised to learn that the quilts are inextricably linked to slavery, and poverty?

The quilts were made out of necessity, to keep the women and their families warm in their unheated cabins.  In Arlonzia Pettway‘s home, for example, electricity didn’t arrive until 1964,  running water was available in 1974, and a telephone installed in 1976.

Bars and blocks, Arlonzia Pettway, 2000s, soulsgrowndeep.org image

Recycled and scavenged fabrics were used for the quilts.  In the excellent NYTimes video about the Gee’s Bend quilters, While I Yet Live, one of the women recalls … Sometime you walking along the highway, you see an old piece of material, you went to pick it up and run home and give it to my momma. And, you know, she put it in a quilt.

Anna Mae Young’s quilt, below, is made of used work clothes.

Gee's Bend quilt, Anna Mae Young, 1976, Smithsonianmag.com image

Gee’s Bend quilt, Anna Mae Young, 1976, Smithsonianmag.com image

The idea of artwork being both beautiful and useful is worth exploring.  Of course, William Morris’ quote comes to mind:  Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. (Beauty of Life lecture, 1880)  Is it sacrilegious/naïve/cheeky to suggest that several well known abstract expressionist paintings could be easily swapped out for these quilts?  One could hang the quilt on the wall and take it down when needed. Goodbye Pollack, welcome Pettway!

I am sorry to say that I didn’t know anything of these artworks until October 2017.  I visited the deYoung Museum during a brief stay in San Fransisco (sigh….remember those days?!), and, as often happens, happily stumbled upon new and challenging work.  The Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibited alongside the shows Revelations:  Art from the American South and Coming Together: Artistic Traditions of the Quilt and the Print.

I had never seen a collaboration between quilters and printmakers.  Quilting and printmaking?  How does that work?  Paulson Fontaine Press in the San Fransisco Bay Area worked with the quilters to produce limited editions of intaglio prints. Here is a very brief video from their studios, where the soft ground and aquatint etchings are produced.

Louisiana Bendolph quilt top on a soft ground plate, Paulson Fontaine Press image

Paulson Fontaine Press image

The collaboration began in 2005, and continues to the present. In 2005 and 2007, (then) Paulson Press printed an edition of  four of Louisiana Bendolph’s quilt designs.  As recently as October 2020, they released three new editions of Gee’s Bend prints by Mary Lee Bendolph and her daughter, Essie Bendolph Pettway.

 

Paulson Fontaine Press exemplifies the democratic nature of printmaking.  Working with the artist quilters of Gee’s Bend, they print the artworks in editions of 50. The art becomes accessible to more people.  Museums are collecting, and exhibiting the works.  Commercial galleries are offering the prints for sale.  Paulson Fontaine Press is also contributing a portion of their sales of the latest print release to the Equal Justice Initiative.

Useful and beautiful artwork, indeed.

 

 

Spider woman Louise Bourgeois….but so much more

Louise Bourgeois is probably best known for her spider sculptures.  One of the largest graces/guards/threatens (depending on your personal reaction to arachnids) the entrance to the National Gallery of Canada.

Maman, Louise Bourgeois, 1999 National Gallery of Canada image

Maman, Louise Bourgeois, 1999 National Gallery of Canada image

From October 2017 to July 2019 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art produced the very engaging exhibition, Spiders. Because of their size, volume and apparent solidity, the sculptures invite interaction with the viewer, albeit tentatively, in some cases.

Spiders, Louise Bourgeois, SFMoMA 2017, T. Vatrt image

Spiders, Louise Bourgeois, SFMoMA 2017, T. Vatrt image

Spiders, Louise Bourgeois, SFMoMA 2017, T. Vatrt image

Spiders, Louise Bourgeois, SFMoMA 2017, T. Vatrt image

The exhibition also included more intimate pieces.

Spider, Louise Bourgeoise, SFMoMA 2017, T. Vatrt image

Spider, Louise Bourgeoise, SFMoMA 2017, T. Vatrt image

This smaller Spider from 2003 is made of stainless steel and antique tapestry.  SFMoMA calls it an uncanny combination of materials that is both beautiful and disconcerting.  The exhibition’s curator Sarah Roberts wrote about the artwork, referencing Bourgeois’ personal history.  She says that Bourgeois laid bare a more fraught and complex psychological landscape–bright with devotion and protection but also darkened with feelings of guilt, rage and fear of abandonment or failure.  

In a short video from the Tate Bourgeois says I transform hate into love.  That’s what makes me tick.

Spider, Louise Bourgeois, 2003, T. Vatrt image

Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris on Christmas day in 1911.  (Yes!  She was creating the Spider sculptures as an octogenarian.)  She studied mathematics and art in Paris. (Interesting to note: she had a print shop next door to her parents’ tapestry gallery in a suburb of Paris.)  In 1938 she moved to the U.S.A. with her American husband.

After they settled in New York City, she created The Personages.  I find this series as compelling as the Spiders, but for different reasons.

Personages, Louise Bourgeois, artoronto.ca image

Personages, Louise Bourgeois, artoronto.ca image

Personages, Louise Bourgeois, whitney.org image

Personages, Louise Bourgeois, whitney.org image

Hauser & Wirth’s catalogue of her work for Art Basel 2013 is definitely worth a look.  It includes images of Bourgeois, the Personages, and background information.

The appeal of Personages is multi faceted.   They are made of malleable, natural materials:  wood and plaster.  (They were eventually cast in bronze.)  The scale is more human-sized, as opposed to the intimidating size of the Spiders.  She successfully uses the Modernist aesthetic of abstract symbols to evoke the presence of individuals – people to whom she felt connected, but from whom she was physically separated.

In an interview with the New York Times, Bourgeois said this:  Suddenly I had this huge sky space to myself, and I began doing these standing figures. A friend asked me what I was doing.  I told him ‘I feel so lonely that I am rebuilding these people around me.’

Perhaps the emotion contained in the works – the yearning, the loneliness, the love, the regret – is what I find most appealing.  It’s palpable.  At this time of year, in the midst of a pandemic, those emotions resonate deeply.

 

 

Loss, …and change?

It’s a time of great loss.  The death of the American painter, Emma Amos , adds another drop into the ocean of sadness threatening to flood our world.

Black Dog Blues, Emma Amos, 1983 artnews image

Emma Amos (American, born 1938). Preparing for a Face Lift, 1981. Etching and crayon, 8 ¼ × 7 ¾ in. (21 × 19.7 cm). Courtesy of Emma Amos. © Emma Amos; courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE, New York. Licensed by VAGA, New York

Emma Amos (American, born 1938). Preparing for a Face Lift, 1981. Etching and crayon, 8 ¼ × 7 ¾ in. (21 × 19.7 cm). Courtesy of Emma Amos. © Emma Amos; courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE, New York. Licensed by VAGA, New York

Baby, Emma Amos, 1966, oil on canvas, 45" x 50"

Baby, Emma Amos, 1966, oil on canvas, 45″ x 50″

Artnews has prepared a brief slideshow of a few of her works.   Ms Amos worked across several media, from drawing and painting to printmaking, tapestry and installation work.

Emma Amos was an artist, wife, mother, and (sometimes) reluctant activitist.  She was a Guerrilla Girl! Guerrilla Girls work anonymously to expose gender and ethnic bias, but Ms Amos did say I was once a member of a very famous clandestine women’s group that worked at night and did not ever go out without masks on our faces.

Howard Cotter’s article in the New York Times Is worth a read.  It’s a factual, insightful and compassionate summary of a very accomplished artist. He points out the significance of paintings like Tightrope, Equals and Work Suit.

Tightrope, Emma Amos, 1994, acrylic on linen with African fabric borders, 82" x 58"

Tightrope, Emma Amos, 1994, acrylic on linen with African fabric borders, 82″ x 58″

Equals, Emma Amos, acrylic on linen fabric, image transfer, African fabric borders, 1992

Equals, Emma Amos, acrylic on linen fabric, image transfer, African fabric borders, 1992

Work Suit, 1994 Acrylic on linen, with African fabric borders and photo transfer, 74" x 54" Image courtesy Ryan Lee Gallery

Work Suit, 1994 Acrylic on linen, with African fabric borders and photo transfer, 74″ x 54″ Image courtesy Ryan Lee Gallery

If you’re like me, you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of Emma Amos, or seen her work.  She wondered the same thing.  The ARTnews article about her career quotes her: I wake up in the morning and say, ‘I have one piece at the Museum of Modern Art.  I wonder, Is it still there?’  ‘You know, I wonder if I’ve been deaccessioned,’ she said. ‘And I wonder how come nobody knows who I am?’

As we all know, it’s time for that to change.