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| Masters: Art Quilts (volume 1) |
I read about Masters: Art Quilts volume 2 at the Lark Crafts blog a few days ago and promptly took off to the library to hunt down a copy of Masters: Art Quilts volume 1.
WOW, great find. Every page stands out. The quilts are gorgeous and so many different styles are represented. There are landscapes, portraits, geometrics and plenty other creative pieces that make the book not just a great coffee table book to admire but also inspiring to quiltmakers, crafters and art lovers. If you've ever doubted that quilting can be considered art and not just a craft form, Masters: Art Quilts volume 1 will convince you quilting can definitely be defined as art in its own right. The pieces showcased in the book are remarkable, the details in some of them are truly amazing.
I have to admit I'm writing this review as someone who's not familiar with the works of many quilt artists. I follow the lifes and times of a lot of quilting bloggers but it's really a different category of work (I'm not dissing them at all, some of them do wonderful work which I think of as art). I thought Martha Sielman, a quilting artist herself who is also executive director of Studio Art Quilt Associates, did a fine job curating Masters: Art Quilts volume 1 (she also curated the second volume). The range of artist and the variation in the repertoire of some make this a wonderful collection and a collectible in itself. No wonder there is a second volume now! Can't wait to see it.
My only complaint is that the photos, beautiful though they are, don't do the quilts justice. They are gorgeous and look like paintings but they look so two-dimensional. The textures of the quilts are somewhat lost in the 2D photos. I don't know if it's impossible to get a more 3D result with top-down photos. If you haunt craft blogs like I do and see some of the quilts bloggers post about with photos taken in real-life settings - with a bit of angle, hung up outside and blowing in the wind, snuggling up to a warm body etc - you can see them so much better. Sometimes you can almost even imagine how they would feel. The quilts come alive much better in those sorts of photos, I think. I suppose that's why we should still go to museums in real life even if nowadays we can do virtual tours, the paintings and artworks are often shot from the front at one angle. Nothing like seeing the real thing.
Nevertheless, this book ranks as 5 stars for me.
I reviewed Masters: Book Arts recently. After some research, I found out that Masters is a series Lark Books publishes on various topics. In the books, 40 masters of the art/craft are featured with a few examples of their works. Of the three books in the series I've seen, it's an impressive series. It's like going on a trip to the museum to see masterpieces. I'm looking forward to seeing more of these Masters books.
Here are a couple photos of some works you can see in Masters: Art Quilts volume 1. Click on the photos for a closer look. Enjoy!
[ links to quilting artists' websites are at the bottom of this blogpost ]
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| Michael A. Cummings quilts in Masters: Art Quilts |
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| Noriko Endo quilts in Masters: Art Quilts |
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| Deidre Scherer quilts in Masters: Art Quilts |
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| Chiaki Dosho quilts in Masters: Art Quilts |
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| Terrie Hancock Mangat quilts in Masters: Art Quilts |
[ continue reading to see more pages of the book from Google Preview below ]
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Masters: Art Quilts VOLUME 1
Curator: Martha Sielman
Publisher: Lark Books (May 6, 2008)
ISBN-13: 978-1600591075
Masters: Art Quilts volume 2 was released earlier this month. You can see a few photos of the quilts in the book at the Lark Crafts blog or the website of Martha Sielman, who curated both Masters: Art Quilts books.
The release of Masters: Art Quilts volume 2 will be accompanied by a traveling exhibition. Masters 2 will premiere at the International Quilt Festival in Houston on November 3. It will travel to Cincinnati, Long Beach an the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK, next year. For more information, check the SAQA website. Masters 2 will showcase one work each by 37 of the 41 artists featured in Masters: Art Quilts volume 2.
Masters: Art Quilts VOLUME 2
Curator: Martha Sielman
Publisher: Lark Books (August 2, 2011)
ISBN: 978-1600595998
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more pages of Masters: Art Quilts volume 1 from Google Preview
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Related links
Michael A. Cumming artist and quilter
Noriko Endo's Confetti Naturescape
Deidre Scherer - Works in Fabric and Thread
Chiaki Dosho Art Quilt
Terrie Hancock Mangat's TerryStudio.com
by liberal sprinkles
