Masters: Art Quilts is part of a series published by Lark Books under the premise of featuring major works by forty leading artists in a specific medium. To date, the series includes, in addition to this volume, Beadweaving, Gemstones, Glass Beads and Porcelain.
Having started this way to indicate that the emphasis is perhaps greater on craft than art in their selection of media, I must continue by saying this gorgeous, gorgeous book needs (yes, needs) to grace your desk, coffee table or bedside reading pile.
I guess that pretty much gives away the general tenor of this review, but, more specifically, this is a much-needed volume if you are an artist who tires of explaining the ART in art quilt or who enjoys reading about the why, rather than the how, of artists.
If you are a collector of art quilts or a general art aficionada, Masters: Art Quilts will help you understand this medium (why fabric???) and provide hours of delighted perusal.
The emphasis on only forty artists, dictated by the constraints of the series, was undoubtedly a cruel hardship to the editor and curator, Martha Sielman. Sielman is the Executive Director of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), an organization dedicated to the promotion of art quilts and their makers.
Each of the forty artists receives a small essay by Sielman, space for personal comments about their artwork, and, of course, several (up to ten or twelve, including details) photos of their artwork over eight pages.
The small essays by Sielman are sparkling. Nothing is harder than to study the work of a diverse cross-section of artists and render their work sensible and in a perceptive light in a very short essay.
Editor essays are usually the least valuable part of a survey, but Sielman has added to the considerable worth of this volume by sharing what is important about each artist, what themes the artist has explored and placing their work in the context of the art quilt movement.
The comments by the artists are necessarily short and, I assume, selected and edited by Sielman. Again, the comments are seldom gratuitous and often a revelation. I completely reassessed my viewpoint of the work of Jane Sassaman after reading this: Plants are my metaphor. A plant travels the same cycle as a human: fertility, birth, maturity, death and rebirth.
The format of the book is one of its strong points. There are 414 pages in a 9″ x 8″ inch format. Despite it’s bulk, this book is user friendly - - easy to hold and it fits nicely in a tote bag. The photos are large, of excellent quality and unbelievable in number. If you have shopped for magazines lately at a newsstand, you will agree that it is somewhat mind-boggling that this huge book retails for $24.95.
I found it best to flip through the book until I saw a work that caught my eye and then to read the whole “chapter” about the artist and study the photos before moving on. Reading straight through is asking for sensory overload.
I have only two small quibbles about the book. The designation “Master” does imply those practitioners of an art that have labored long and hard in the field or have shown a mastery through an established style, regardless of their time in the field.
I personally could have seen a lot less of the art quilts which were the exciting New Thing of their time (some dating back to the 60’s) and a lot more current work. Perhaps the focus on the series is to show the history as well as the current state of the medium, but it does beg the question if some of the artists chosen would be better identified as Master Emeritus or some other title that acknowledges the debt art quilters owe these pioneers in the field.
Also many of the chosen artists are very well-known in the art quilt exhibit circuit, but perhaps those artists who eschew that route for professional or personal reasons are less well-represented. However these are minor considerations when weighed against the greater service this book provides as a resource for artists and collectors.
Part of the joy of reading Art Quilts: Masters is having a fine argument with yourself about the inclusions and exclusions made necessary by the choice of forty artists and for the ranking of your own personal favorites among the artwork. I have found that argument to be an education in itself.
If you would like an autographed copy and to have 55% of the $24.95 purchase price donated to Studio Art Quilt Associates (a non-profit organization, so, hey, why wouldn’t you?), visit the SAQA Store. Otherwise, it is available at the usual online bookstores, such as Amazon.
