The 15th Quilt Nihon Exhibition & Viewpoints 9
The 15th Quilt Nihon Exhibition and Viewpoints 9
Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum
200 Violet Street, Suite 140, Golden, CO 80401
January 18-April 17, 2021
Admission: Adults: $10; Seniors: $9; Active Military, Children 6-12, and Students: $5.
Review by Jillian Blackwell
The quilts of the 15th Quilt Nihon Exhibition at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum are each their own elaborate world. From a distance, each quilt is a bold composition, while closer inspection reveals beautiful, meticulous detail. The exhibition comes from a competition sponsored by the Japanese Handicraft Instructors’ Association, which is supported by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. The quilts presented are winners of various prizes in two categories: traditional and contemporary. The traditional quilts are described by JHIA as “inspired and based on traditional ideas,” whereas the contemporary quilts “demonstrate originality and independent ideas.” [1] Across both categories, the quilts exhibit mastery of pattern, color, and scale.
Within the traditional category, the quilts demonstrate an amazing intricacy, so much so that one might wonder “how long did it take them to make this?” Sometimes this intricacy is achieved through shapes and their arrangement, sometimes through the fine design of the quilting stitches that spread across the surface. Within recognizable quilting patterns and shapes, the quilters were able to create gorgeously varied compositions.
Toshiko Akashi, Elegant and Brilliant in Osaka, silk, cotton, and polyester; hand pieced, machine pieced, and hand quilted, 81 x 81 inches. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
One striking example of this is Toshiko Akashi’s Elegant and Brilliant in Osaka, which is a rainbow bouquet of colors. The fabric shapes vary in value across the surface, creating areas of high contrast and areas of low contrast. In some places, the patches fade to subdued pastels and white fabrics. In other areas, fully saturated reds and blues stand out starkly next to white shapes. This variation creates a wave of movement across the quilt, which does not overwhelm the pattern created by the fabric shapes, but instead balances its rigidity.
Kazuko Sekiguchi, Longing for Antiques! Red and White World, cotton; hand pieced, machine pieced, and hand quilted, 79 x 79 inches. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
Detail of Kazuko Sekiguchi, Longing for Antiques! Red and White World. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
Kazuko Sekiguchi’s Longing for Antiques! Red and White World explores a much more distilled palette with her log cabin design. Using only red and white, the arrangement of the quilting blocks creates a bold, striped, geometric pattern. A log cabin quilt is created by arranging rectangular strips of fabric that spiral inwards to a small square at the center of each quilting block. Often, a combination of light and dark fabrics is used. These lights and darks are arranged so that the block is cut diagonally in half. Sekiguchi utilizes these diagonal divisions to create the graphic stripes that radiate from the center of the quilt. Not only is the composition bold, but also, if one steps close to the quilt, the minute detail is gratifying. Each block is made up of over twenty rectangular strips. Within the white spaces are fragments of words and phrases. As Sekiguchi describes it, the text “add[s] rhythm to the design” and provides a bit of nuance to the surface. [2]
By contrast, the quilts in the contemporary category tend not to be so symmetrical and rigid. Many of the compositions have a single, off-center focal point. The line work is often more fluid and organic, with the finished quilts coming off as more playful. Of particular interest, however, are those quilts that use a repeating pattern and make references outside of the quilting world.
Elke Klein, Tiles #20: Vert, hand dyed cotton; machine pieced, machine quilted, 86 x 75 inches. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
Elke Klein’s Tiles #20: Vert makes use of geometric shapes to create a pattern that nods to the Bauhaus movement and the likes of Anni Albers. The composition begins with a basic grid of square quilting blocks. Then, within the blocks, thin rectangles cut diagonally across the square. These short straight lines skitter across the surface, creating a consistent but active rhythm. Klein plays with positive and negative space, flip-flopping the positions of the red and blue shapes throughout. In her description of the piece, Klein states: “Life doesn’t follow a straight path. Time speeds along in a zigzag pattern.” [3] In this light, the rectangular sticks of red and blue might convey the zigzag pattern of time. Meanwhile, the stitches over these geometric shapes take a not-straight path and are more reminiscent of topographical lines. Concentric lemon shapes radiate from the green blocks and flow into a wiggly all-over line, reminiscent of a Keith Haring background. For all of its busyness, Tiles #20: Vert is a well-balanced composition that is quite pleasing to take in.
Mayumi Hatakenaka, Strelitzia, cotton, self-made heat transfer sheets (designed and cut using a scanning and cutting machine); machine pieced, machine quilted, and appliqué, 79 x 78 inches. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
Strelitzia by Mayumi Hatakenaka also ventures into abstraction. Hatakenaka’s use of shape and color are reductive, presenting circles, squares, and sharp isosceles triangles using only black, white, green, and yellow. “Strelitzia” is the scientific name of the genus of flower commonly known as the bird of paradise, and a sharply geometric bird of paradise repeats across the quilt in two rows. A combination of circles, squares, lines, and grids overlays each iteration of the flower. The yellow fabric used has a vinyl-like sheen to it, adding to the hard, industrial mood of the composition. The word “strelitzia” is repeatedly stamped over one of the bird of paradise forms, making it another decorative element. While many components repeat, there is no consistency in how these are laid out across the surface, and so Hatakenaka riffs in the way a jazz musician might.
After the expansive, expressive quilts of the 15th Quilt Nihon Exhibition in the front room, one enters the more intimate setting of the Viewpoints 9 exhibition. “Viewpoints 9” is an “international, invitational, fiber art group.” [4] For this show, each of the nine members of Viewpoints 9 submitted a single word to which the other members responded, creating a plethora of work. With so many pieces, this exhibition is literally and metaphorically overflowing with ideas, so much so that the exhibition spills into the administrative offices of the museum. The words range from conceptual to compositional in nature—from words like “addiction” and “home” to “line” and “structure.” The artists’ works range in style from traditional (in a quilting sense), to pictorial, to experimental.
Martha Wolfe, Ritsurin Garden: Koi, raw edge appliquéd koi from batik fabrics are layered on Japanese yarn-dyed machine pieced background; dye-na-flow is layered over the top and it is machine quilted, 18 x 36 inches. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
Ritsorin Garden: Koi by Martha Wolfe responds to the word “repetition.” Dyed silk organza overlays watercolor-esque koi fish in a murky field of grays. The layer of translucent organza refers to the transparency of water and gives the composition depth. Diagonal quilting stitches are executed with a variegated thread, also recalling water and its shimmering surface. The composition is calming and quiet. While there is not much explicit formal repetition in the work, Wolfe says the piece calls on themes that repeat in her body of work.
Betsy Busby, Teasel, silk dupioni; hand quilted, machine quilted, 18 x 36 inches. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
In an altogether different response to “repetition,” Betty Busby’s Teasel uses both the traditional Japanese quilting method of sashiko and reverse stencilling. [5] The silhouette of the teasel plant stands out starkly in dark purple, surrounded by a gold background reminiscent of a byzantine icon painting. Red sashiko-style stitches run vertically through the background and this repetitive stitching directly connects to the inspiration word. The stencilling, a technique not regularly used in quilting, makes this piece vividly unique and arresting.
Kate Themel, Home Turf, hand dyed and batik fabrics; raw edge appliqué, hand-guided machine quilted, 18 x 36 inches. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
Detail of Kate Themel, Home Turf. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
In response to the word “home,” Kate Themel created Home Turf, a beautifully rendered depiction of the “free-motion quilting foot on [her] sewing machine.” [6] She renders the details of the sewing machine with shades of gray and off-white fabric, reinforcing the image with the directional lines of the quilting stitches. The foot appears very three-dimensional, with its perspectival rectilinear parts, curved cylindrical parts, and an actual golden thread in the place where the thread would be in the real sewing machine. This quilting foot is a synecdochical representation of Themel’s studio and the comfort she finds there.
Lin Hsin-Chen shows an eye for color and scale in her selection of fabrics in many of her quilts in the exhibition. Her work Dear Trees depicts a tall tree from a vantage point below its boughs. The fabrics employed for the greenery closer to the viewer have larger scale patterns, while those greenery patches farther up and away have patterns that are smaller in scale, making the tree appear to tower overhead. There is a beautiful variety of greens and beiges, simulating the dappled light of a forest.
The quilts of Viewpoint 9 investigate an incredible range of techniques—from transparency to stencilling to beadwork, to name a few. The styles are also widely divergent. Some quilts achieve a beautiful cohesion, as their small parts work in harmony to create traditional-style quilts. Other quilts seek to push the boundaries of quilting. But some of these works go a step too far—their simplistic responses to the inspiration words coming off as kitschy or unsophisticated. Arguably, the most intriguing pieces are the ones exploring the boundary between art and craft. In these works, the artists employ new techniques in service of self-expression and the concept commands the composition, over craft. The Viewpoints 9 exhibition packs in an incredible amount and variety of work—certainly worth the visit.
Jillian Blackwell is a Denver-based artist and art educator. She holds a BA in Fine Arts with a Concentration in Ceramics from the University of Pennsylvania.
[1] https://www.jhia.org/project/nihonten?lang=en
[2] A quote from Kazuko Sekiguchi on the placard displayed next to the work.
[3] A quote from Elke Klein on the placard displayed next to the work.
[4] https://www.viewpoints9.com/about
[5] Sashiko is a traditional Japanese style of embroidery or stitching, often employing a running stitch to create a grid of stitches across the surface of the fabric. Historically used to functionally reinforce fabric, sashiko is also used for its decorative quality.
[6] A quote from Kate Themel on the placard displayed next to the work.
