Comments on: Painted and Quilted: Up for Discussion, by June Underwood http://raggedclothcafe.com/2008/02/25/painted-and-quilted-up-for-discussion-by-june-underwood/ Discussions and ideas about art and textile art Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:47:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU By: thelmasmith http://raggedclothcafe.com/2008/02/25/painted-and-quilted-up-for-discussion-by-june-underwood/#comment-1750 thelmasmith Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:06:24 +0000 http://junomain.wordpress.com/?p=770#comment-1750 I like how neatly Olga defined the big question: "In essence it is the fundamental why-make-art-in-the-form-of-a-domestic-craft question." Like the rest of us, I have no good answer. I do know I like the contrariness of presenting serious ideas in a medium that the world has defined as comforting. It allows me to draw people into a work. The serious questions sneak up because of the medium. I was raised with textiles. My grandmother taught me embroidery before her death when I was in first grande in a one room school house. Cloth is definitely one of the defining parameters or domesticity. That's that for good or bad. I picked it up again in my forties when I had time available. The other aspect of the continuting choice is a statement the late Arlene LewAllen made at a saqa conference in Santa Fe in 1999, "Show me something I've never seen before!" That command comes into play if, as artists, we wish to engage in the public aspects of our work. I like how neatly Olga defined the big question: “In essence it is the fundamental why-make-art-in-the-form-of-a-domestic-craft question.”

Like the rest of us, I have no good answer. I do know I like the contrariness of presenting serious ideas in a medium that the world has defined as comforting. It allows me to draw people into a work. The serious questions sneak up because of the medium.

I was raised with textiles. My grandmother taught me embroidery before her death when I was in first grande in a one room school house. Cloth is definitely one of the defining parameters or domesticity. That’s that for good or bad. I picked it up again in my forties when I had time available.

The other aspect of the continuting choice is a statement the late Arlene LewAllen made at a saqa conference in Santa Fe in 1999, “Show me something I’ve never seen before!” That command comes into play if, as artists, we wish to engage in the public aspects of our work.

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