Quilts are social objects

“Americans have always known quilt makers, openly embraced their creations, and applauded their achievements. Quilt makers have always been seen as our peers, not our betters. These biases and attitudes have been a double edged sword for quilts, until recently keeping them from being taken seriously by historians and scholars and from receiving the recognition they have deserved as artistic works of considerable merit and cultural importance. Today’s studio art quilters also struggle against the hoary and homey notion of the quilt as domestic artifact rather than object of art. This struggle is often compounded by prejudices of those who do not recognize quilts as art or women as artists.” quotation taken from Quilts a Living Tradition, 1995, Robert Shaw, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Beaux Arts Editions.

Many influential art quilt makers from the 1970’s are still reinventing their personal styles in their latest series of art quilts, fiber art luminaries such as Michael James, Nancy Crow and Jean Ray Laury. These artists/catalysts are still respected because through experience and by example they still impact the ongoing art quilt dialogue of reviewing and redefining what’s good quilt art and what’s not.