Funny Quilting Sewing Quilt Design Shirt, hoodie, tank top, sweater

The Funny Quilting Sewing Quilt Design Shirt program showcases about 30 works that run a variety of pieces from historical and traditional quilting to mixed and extremely modern media works, even pushing into virtual and non-fiber-based forms of cotton blanch. Blankets have been famously used to showcase modern causes, such as the AIDS Memorial Blanket (a collection included in the program);

Funny Quilting Sewing Quilt Design Shirt, hoodie, tank top, sweater

Perhaps less recognized is that blankets always create a subversive path to express themselves to those who have been marginalized historically due to their gender, education, financial independence and access to materials. The act of creating the entire fabric from scrap and scum is not only a matter of making a living but also a statement of the nature of what (and who) is removed, as well as an act of empowering the recovery of such things in the name of something transformed and beautiful.

Bisa Butler, “The Storm, the Whirlwind and the Earthquake” (2020) Cotton, silk, wool and poached velvet and needle a diamond, 50 x 88 x 2 inches (photo provided by Claire Oliver Gallery, New York)
This is seen throughout the Funny Quilting Sewing Quilt Design Shirt Radical Tradition, from the literally transformation of clothes hoarded in Dachau to a memorable item of concentration camp survivors; in honor of works such as Faith Ringgold’s “Ben” (circa 1978), a soft sculpture adorns the “unauthorized man” in a story about pins and patches. Similarly, Bisa Butler’s “The Storm, the Whirlwind, and the Earthquake” (2019-20), is a stunning blanched portrait of influential social reformer Frederick Douglass. Although historically, much of the quidding as a domestic art was performed by women, modern participants in the show included men such as Hank Willis Thomas, Aaron McIntosh, Anthony Sonnenberg and Sanford Biggers. It also features a large work by sex artist L.J. Roberts, Funny Quilting Sewing Quilt Design Shirt who has a massive, playful TransVan RV, with LiteBrite taillights and a dazzling aura of stuffed rainbow fiber worms, dominates the entire wall and really stands out, even in a performance with lots of dynamic ideas and participants.