This app was created for the exhibition, Blanket Statements: New Quilts by Kaffe Fassett and Historical Quilts from the Collection of the Quilt Museum and Gallery, York, UK held at the James A. Michener Art Museum from November 14, 2015 – February 21, 2016.
The Michener is one of only two museums in the U.S. to host this stellar textile exhibition of 35 historical and contemporary quilts with trans-Atlantic ties (shown in England as Ancestral Gifts). The exhibition features fifteen new quilts, designed by the American-born, internationally-known textile artist Kaffe Fassett, that were created in response to fifteen historical quilts, dating from 1780 to 1949, that he selected from the collection of the Quilt Museum and Gallery, York, UK. Although it comes to the Michener from the United Kingdom, Blanket Statements has strong local connections: three of the new quilts were designed by Bucks County artisans, and ten of them were crafted in the area under Fassett’s supervision. To further visitor’s exploration of quilting and textile arts in a contemporary context, the Michener is augmenting the exhibition with a number of mixed-media quilted pieces by the contemporary Philadelphia artist Virgil Marti, who frequently integrates textiles into his work.