Quilt art

Because of feminism and the new craft movements of the 1960s and 1970s, quilting techniques, traditionally used by women, became prominent in the making of fine arts.

Jean Ray Laury (1928–2011) is cited by Robert Shaw as the "most prominent and influential of [the] early modern [American] quiltmakers."

Donnell was a feminist who eschewed the "art scene" in order to explore quilts as liberating creativity for women.

James' follow-up book, published in 1981 (The Second Quiltmaker's Handbook: Creative Approaches to Contemporary Quilt Design), showed his work as well as photos and analyses of art by Nancy Halpern, Beth Gutcheon, Radka Donnell, Nancy Crow, Francoise Barnes, and Katie Pasquini, among others.

Nancy Crow, another influential teacher and writer of books, was instrumental in freeing quilting artists from certain preconceptions about rules.

(Shaw, p. 66) Two other quilt artists, Molly Upton (1953–1977) and Susan Hoffman, exhibited with Radka Donnell in 1975 at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University.

(Shaw, p. 60) Other quilt artists working in the 1970s include Terrie Hancock Mangat, Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade, Nancy Clearwater Herman, Jan Myers-Newbury, Pamela Studstill, Joan Schultz, Yvonne Porcella, Ruth McDowell, Katherine Westphal and Rise Nagin.

This type of visual presentation marked a break from the traditional crowded hanging of quilts in county fairs and guild shows that had predominated throughout earlier displays.

The exhibit was widely reviewed, including a glowing report by the New York Times art critic, Hilton Kramer.

[9] The presentation of pieced quilts, with their emphasis on color and geometric forms, fit perfectly into the art modes of the time.

The abstract expressionists, like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, who used large swaths of color on canvas, had had their moment in the 1950s.

The Whitney's pieced art exhibit toured the country and was followed by a quilt craze, which reached a culmination in the Bicentennial events of 1976.

She says that "the male, Jamesian model of 'quilt art' violates the very qualities that initially attracted women to quilting and reinforce their continuing pursuit of it.

[12] Weidlich argues that quilts emphasize relationship and connection, and that James would remove those association to conform to male standards of the artist as idiosyncratic and subversive.

The best known tailor/quilter is Joe Hedley(1750-1826) of Northumberland....." Cunningham goes on to cite many more examples of male quilt making from the past up to the present.

Dr Dunton, the founder of the American Occupational Therapy Association, encouraged his patients to pursue quilting as a curative activity/therapeutic diversion...."[13] Another controversy involves the work and people in the isolated Alabama hamlet of Gee's Bend.

In the early 21st century, the Gee's Bend quilters, "discovered" by folk art collectors Bill and Matt Arnett, became celebrated as artists and toured the U.S. widely, carrying their "piece quilts" to innumerable communities where they gave talks about their lives and work.

Coffee table books showed the work and lives of the Gee's Bend artists; items used domestically began to appear, bearing their designs.

In the Fall, 2010 issue of the "Surface Design Association Journal", Michael James names the following as contemporary fine artists working with quilting techniques: Michael Cummings, Ursula Rauch, Ai Kijima, Lynn Setterington, Dorothy Caldwell, Diana Harrison, Tracey Emin, Velda Newman, Clare Plug, Anna Von Mertens, Linda MacDonald, M.Joan Lintault, Susan Shie, Terrie Mangat, and Jo Budd.

Ian Berry who uses only denim to create his works, but uses glue, not quilting[18][19] has shown extensively in the Fine Art world.