I'm a little late on this, but I was interviewed by Mr. Barnes during the
research phase of the article and I can say that he got the facts about our
exhibit incorrect, so the rest of the article is highly suspect.

I exhibit mostly contemporary "art quilts" by living artists, and the two
exhibitions we had on view this summer included quilts by some of the best
ones working today.  I wrote a letter to the WSJ about the one-sidedness of
the article and received no response (although Mr. Barnes has responded
personally to the flurry of letters sent by the quilt art listserv, and to
the one sent by a friend of mine who is not an artist or a museum person).
I think the reason he wrote the article was to assure those who have
invested in paintings that their art is not going to lose value because of
those darn crafters taking over the museums--it was pretty transparent that
there was some sort of ulterior motive, because good journalism certainly
wasn't it.

Will not waste any more time thinking about this--I have an art form to
educate the world about!

Julia Muney Moore
Director of Exhibitions and Artist Services
Indianapolis Art Center
820 E. 67th St.
Indianapolis, IN  46220
(317) 255-2464 x233
FAX (317) 254-0486
email <[log in to unmask]>
website <http://www.indplsartcenter.org>


-----Original Message-----
From: Carolyn Breedlove [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 1:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal article -- "Museums Cozy Up To Quilts"


Personally, I found the article patronizing and rather ignorant.  We have
had a quilt exhibit, & yes, it is a craft with a history going back and
abroad far beyond Americana, when it was used as armor, for example.  It has
been used as social commentary, as an outlet for women's pent-up artistic
impulses, and certainly as a vehicle for creating beauty ("art") by
recycling, literally creating something out of nothing.  But if you think
quilting at its highest level of accomplishment is not art, you cannot have
seen the mind-boggling complexity, improvisation, and color sense of truly
fine quilts (and, being at a historic site, I'm speaking strictly of
historic work, not even the new use of quilting in ways far from its older
functional purposes).  The Bayeux Tapestry is just sewing, right?

Carolyn Breedlove
Kent Plantation House
Alexandria, LA
[log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kim Dixon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 8:25 AM
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal article -- "Museums Cozy Up To Quilts"


> I have a mixed opinion about this article.  At first,
> I thought people questioning whether or not quilts
> were actually art, rather insulting.  The amount of
> time, technique skill and shear effort it takes to
> produce even one twin size quilt surpasses many
> painters considered to be of "high art" quality.  Just
> creating the design and picking out the colors alone,
> can be overwhelming!  But then I had to stop and
> think.  See, I'm a quilter and I have gone to several
> quilt shows and the work that is submitted to many of
> these shows are absolutely amazing!  Yet, I do not see
> these type of quilts in many of the museum shows I
> have seen.  So maybe it is not the genera that is the
> problem, but the museum profession's understanding of
> what is an outstanding piece of quilt artwork.
>
> Kim Dixon
>
>
>
>
>
> --- Kimberly Kenney <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > I saw this article through another list, and I
> > wondered what you all thought about it.  I won't
> > comment now, though I do have an opinion...
> >
> > Kim Kenney
> > Curator
> > McKinley Museum
> >
> > *********************************************
> >
> > "MUSEUMS COZY UP TO QUILTS"
> >
> > It's High Season for Blankets,
> > But Patrons Ask: Is It Art?
> > Competing with El Greco
> >
> > By BROOKS BARNES
> > Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
> >
> > Museum curators have a lot to worry about in these
> > tough times: attendance,
> > security, damaged art.
> > And now ... bedbugs?
> >
> > >From Colorado to Connecticut, some of the season's
> > biggest blockbuster
> > exhibits
> > have nothing to do with van Gogh and Vermeer --
> > they're all about quilts.
> > Indeed, the kind of bedcovers that look like
> > something
> >
> > from Aunt Edna's
> > boudoir
> > have made it to a surprising number of big-city
> > museums, from "The Quilted
> > Surface" in Columbus, Ohio, to "The Quilts of Gee's
> > Bend," which will hit
> > the
> > Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Another museum on the
> > tour -- New York's
> > august
> > Whitney Museum of American Art.
> >
> > But here's a question: Is it art? Curators and
> > auctioneers are quick to
> > point
> > out that this is legitimate stuff, with its own
> > masterworks and history.
> > Plus,
> > they say, quilts are great for attendance, pulling
> > in
> > a lot of people who
> > wouldn't otherwise set foot in a museum. But many
> > everyday museum-goers say
> > they're surprised to see the usual fare replaced by
> > beaux-arts blankies:
> > This
> > stuff's not art, they say -- it's crafts.
> >
> > Disappointing
> >
> > Kelly Howard, for one, made a recent trip to the UBS
> > PaineWebber Art Gallery
> > in
> > Manhattan after friends raved about its exhibit of
> > rare Tibetan artifacts.
> > Instead, she found a show called "Six Continents of
> > Quilts," which is set to
> > appear in national and international museums for the
> > next four years. "To be
> > honest, I'm a little disappointed," the New York
> > actress says. Two of the
> > showpieces -- one with yellow police tape woven into
> > it and another that
> > incorporated computer circuitry -- did catch her
> > eye.
> > "I'm glad those two
> > are
> > hanging on a wall," she says, because they would
> > "hurt
> >
> > somebody on a bed."
> >
> > This isn't the first time quilts have made the
> > museum
> > scene. The Whitney
> > mounted the first major-museum quilt show back in
> > 1971, and a Civil War-era
> > quilt sold for $264,000 at Sotheby's in the in the
> > mid-'90s. But in general,
> > these pieces rarely made it beyond folk-art museums
> > and the historic-homes
> > circuit -- until now. Suddenly, quilts seem to be
> > coming out all over, with
> > eight big shows hitting art museums around the U.S.
> > this year. The latest
> > development: quilt subgenres. Indianapolis is
> > cozying
> > up to 50 food-related
> > works, while Yale University Art Gallery is
> > highlighting "Nine
> > African-American
> > Quilters."
> >
> > After all, adherents argue, if mosaics and collages
> > are art, why not quilts?
> > "They're highly refined objects that often address
> > important historical
> > themes," says Nancy Druckman, director of Sotheby's
> > folk-art department.
> > Also,
> > the nation has 20 million quilters -- a hefty,
> > built-in audience for any one
> > of
> > these displays.
> >
> > But there may be another, more prosaic reason for
> > the
> > quilt craze: These
> > shows
> > are cheap to mount. And museums need that,
> > especially
> > at a time when
> > attendance
> > is falling, outside funding is drying up and
> > insurance
> >
> > costs are soaring.
> > Insuring a quilt exhibition costs "peanuts" compared
> > with even a modest
> > painting or sculpture show, says Michele Twyman, who
> > handles museums for
> > Chubb
> > insurance. Shipping's cheaper, too: While a large
> > painting may cost $1,000
> > to
> > transport from Houston to New York, quilts of the
> > same
> >
> > size can go for about
> > $400. "They're a cinch compared to traditional
> > artworks," says Jonathan
> > Schwartz, president of Atelier 4, a New York
> > art-shipping outfit.
> >
> > An Easy Sell
> >
> > Better still, quilts are an easy sell to finicky
> > corporate sponsors who
> > usually
> > like uncontroversial art. Even Kenneth Lay, former
> > chief executive of Enron,
> > is
> > a sponsor of "Gee's Bend." (The show features denim,
> > corduroy and
> > cotton-scrap
> > quilts by African-American women in rural Alabama.)
> > "Everybody wants a piece
> > of
> > it," says Shelly Zegart, the show's consulting
> > curator. The Museum of Fine
> > Arts, Houston expects the show to attract 110,000
> > visitors during its 54-day
> > run there -- on a par with the "Masterworks from El
> > Greco to Picasso" show
> > that
> > will follow it.
> >
> > Still, some visitors hoping for Brancusi are
> > disappointed to find batting.
> > Dallas teacher Michelle Woodall was thinking about
> > hitting the Houston
> > museum
> > as part of her junior high class's upcoming field
> > trip
> >
> > to the Johnson Space
> > Center. But when she saw the fall exhibition
> > schedule,
> >
> > she nixed the plan.
> > "Quilts that keep you warm, in an art museum?" she
> > says. "I'd lose all my
> > credibility."
> >
> > She may want to brace for more shows like it,
> > though.
> > Quilting is just one
> > piece of a broader patchwork of fields that are
> > gaining recognition in the
> > art
> > world. Glass, ceramics, clothing, even "fiber arts"
> > (grass baskets) are
> > showing
> > up in big museums at a time when, coincidentally or
> > not, budgets are at
> > their
> > tightest in a decade. The St. Louis Art Museum is
> > showing "The Art of
> > African
> >
> === message truncated ===
>
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