Quilts: 4 Directions

January 11-March 7, 2020

Featured Artists:
Michael A. Cummings: Quilt Portraits
Judith Content: Quilt Landscapes
and additional works by Susan Hudson and Victoria Findlay Wolfe

The Craft in America Center is pleased to present QUILTS: 4 Directions, featuring portraits by Michael A. Cummings, landscapes by Judith Content and selected additional quilts by Susan Hudson and Victoria Findlay Wolfe. With this exhibition, the Center will proudly feature the work of these four diverse and visionary art quilters from across the U.S. This striking exhibition brings to Los Angeles some of the vibrant, vital works featured in Craft in America’s upcoming PBS episode QUILTS, which airs on December 27, 2019 nationwide. 

For the first time in his career, five quilt portraits by NY-based Michael A. Cummings of African American heroes will be gathered together in his hometown of Los Angeles. Cummings creates monumental quilted portraits of larger-than-life historic icons, including Ella Fitzgerald, Martin Luther King Jr., Josephine Baker, James Baldwin, and Mae Jemison. Historically, quilting has served as a means of record keeping for African Americans and Cummings advances this tradition. Coinciding with African American History month, Cummings’ quilts show a reverence for cultural leaders and celebration of representation.

Paired with the portraits in the adjoining gallery are abstracted, quilted landscapes by Judith Content, who uses the sewing machine as a drawing tool to achieve an evanescent visual haiku that communicates to viewers both emotionally and intellectually. Content’s work is particularly relevant during this era of environmental crisis and flux. Each piece is inspired by the interplay of light and shadow that occurs within natural landscapes, exploring the essence of an image, memory, or moment in time. Relying on intuition and experience, she dyes, pieces, quilts and applies appliqué, to achieve a perfect haiku that draws upon the audience’s memories and experiences upon viewing the finished piece.