Nelson Art Gallery: Part II

I had so much fun the first time, I just couldn’t stay away! Anyway…

“The needle is the woman’s plow, according to John Ruskin,” says Dr. Patricia Turner (1). However, she continues, “Toward the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the needle became the paintbrush for many African American women able to pursue aesthetic expression.” This appears to be the case with Avis Collins Robinson, whose quilts make up a large percentage of the exhibit; not only has she contributed pieces of her own work, she has lent the museum other quilts from her collection, including “Black Man Burden,” the quilt featured in the last blog.

My two personal favorite quilts in the exhibit, while not “authentic (2),” are certainly beautiful designs. I’ll try to cover the highlights: both “Piano Keys” (2009; 108” x 77”) and “My Mama is Dead” (2007; 108” x 87”) are made out of cotton corduroy, cotton batting, and muslin components. The corduroy provides its trademark texture (3) in more of an implied, or haptic,
sense than a visual one.

“Piano Keys” (4) is a highly colorful quilt, which is probably what drew my eye in the first place. It begins with blacks and blues at the top and transitions to yellows and golden-oranges – with a large section of reds, which serves as the focal point of the design – and begins to transition back, with a few strips of blue, red, and black, at the very bottom. The cotton-corduroy strips are hand-dyed which could be the reason for their vivid coloring.

“My Mama is Dead” (5) was created after the death of Annie Ruth Collins, a cancer researcher at the National Institute of Health and, I’m going out on a limb here, the mother of Avis Collins Robinson. The sharp, defined edges of the objects, the use of triangles, and the red accents against the black was reminiscent of Native American Indian artwork; the white background, along with the red and black color scheme, immediately brought to mind the art of the Inuit peoples. The quilt, if featured horizontally instead of vertically is very well balanced without being symmetrical.

(1) She was in the last blog, too. I’m quoting her from the writing about the exhibit found at the entrance to the museum.
(2) The “authentic” quilt reuses old materials to make a unified object that provides warmth. These ones don’t look like their main purpose is to provide warmth; they’re too big. But, like I said, they are very aesthetically pleasing.
(3) Having history in a ski-town I feel compelled to note that corduroy has also come to be associated with “groomers,” probably because properly groomed runs look like corduroy clothing.
(4) Once again, I couldn’t find a picture, so here’s a link: http://16freckles.wordpress.com/
(5) Same deal as with #4: http://subjectivecreativity.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-mama-is-dead.html