WORTH THE DRIVE: Quilts, old and new, at the Columbus Museum of Art

Current shows

‘Quilting a Future: Contemporary Quilts and American Tradition’

Quilt shows are always a big hit and this one is terrific! It’s a wonderful blend of traditional and contemporary quilting and, as you’d expect, extremely colorful.

The inspiration for this show is CMA’s Wasserstrom Collection of more than 400 historic quilts. You’ll see everything from tiny doll and crib quilts from the late 1800s to a modern “quilt” created from paper comic strips. Twenty-nine artists are represented.

The introductory gallery gives you a sampling of themes explored in the rest of the exhibit. We learn how traditional quilts are constructed and how artists of today are using digital imagery and found objects to create new ones. You’ll learn how stories can be told through quilts and how techniques such as robotics-assisted cutting and A1-assisted design are helping the art form continue to change and grow.

Sarah Berenz, the curatorial fellow who co-curated this exhibit with curator-at-large Deidre Hamlar, says the two wanted to reflect on the trajectory of quilts and illustrate the ways in which they’ve evolved and become a popular and creative art form.

“A lot of contemporary artists are looking at traditional quilts,” notes Berenz. “There are contemporary male artists, for example, who aren’t turning up their noses at a traditional medium associated with women. They are embracing it.” A case in point is Max Adrian of Columbus who labels himself a “sewing-based queer artist.” His sculpture in this exhibit resembles a person and inflates and deflates to mirror our breathing!

If you’ve visited The Contemporary Dayton in the past year, you’ll recognize work by some of these artists including Heather Jones, who teaches at Centerville High School and lives in Springfield. She says the inspiration for her work can be traced back to a family who relocated to our area in the 1910′s from Appalachia in search of jobs and a better life.

You can’t miss activist Vanessa German’s dramatic power figure – this one entitled “The Patriot.” German’s striking work at The Co was on display alongside her mother’s lovely quilts. Carolyn L. Mazloomi’s wonderful hand painted picture quilts have been featured at the National Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati. Two in this exhibit are “Rainy Day Twins” and “Sitting with a Few of my Best Friends.”

A grouping of three quilts represents three generations of Irby/Pettway women associated with the renowned Freedom Quilting Bee in Alberta, Wilcox County, Alabama (just a few miles from the more well-known quilter’s haven, Gee’s Bend). The residents of Gee’s Bend are direct descendants of the enslaved people who worked the cotton plantation established in 1816 by Joseph Gee.

Beautiful garments reflect the ways in which quilting has influenced fashion. On display are shoes, bags, shawls, dresses, petticoats and other wearables from famous designers including Bonnie Cashin, Mary McFadden, Chanel, Louis Feraud and Givenchy.

Concludes Berenz.: “We’re hoping museum visitors will see quilts as not just a thing of the past.”

‘Accra! The Rise of a Global Art Community’

Did you know that Accra, Ghana has been a sister city to Columbus since 2015?

To honor the connection, the museum is hosting a group exhibition that celebrates contemporary artists who have ties to Accra. Those ties may be by birth, heritage or personal history.

Eighteen emerging and mid-career artists are featured and there’s an emphasis on portraiture. We learn that over the past five years the “Ghana School” has emerged as an influential group of artists who have reshaped the contemporary art landscape.

This exhibit includes paintings, textiles, works on paper, photographs and sculptures.

Some examples:

‘Sarah Rosalena: In All Directions’

This unusual exhibition is the culmination of a multi-year collaboration between the Columbus Museum of Art and The Ohio State University Department of History of Art. OSU students worked with professor Kris Paulsen and Los Angeles-based weaver Sarah Rosalena to fill the galleries at the Columbus Museum of Art at The Pizzuti. (The building once housed the Pizzuti Collection, a museum founded by Ron and Ann Pizzuti that showcased their own amazing artwork. In 2019, the building and 40 artworks were gifted to the CMA and the space is now being used to host contemporary exhibits and programs.)

In her sculptures and textiles, Rosalena imaginatively brings together Indigenous craft traditions and emerging technologies, The exhibition features more than 35 works and is centered around Rosalena’s investigation of dreams of space exploration and interplanetary colonization.

You can enjoy these dramatic and beautiful creations on their own without understanding how they’ve been made; the work is more impressive when you read about each one and how it came to be. Rosalena is known for conducting scientific and historical research which she then interprets in ceramics, textiles and beadwork using artificial intelligence, satellite data and digital fabrication. Created with tools such as 3D ceramic printers and bead looms, all of the works on view are woven through various constellations of hand and machine. Wow!

Here’s an example: For her series “Transposing a Form,” Rosalena, whose grandfather was a NASA researcher, collaborated with researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and came up with 3D-printed ceramic sculptures constructed from clay simulating the soil on Mars. For this series she married Indigenous coil pot techniques with advanced research in material science and space architecture.

In the process of preparing this exhibit, eight OSU grad students learned first-hand how an exhibit is put together. Paulsen says in one semester they did everything from researching the artist’s work to creating the display and writing a catalog for the show.

‘Think Outside the Brick: The Creative Art of Lego’

Lego lovers will love seeing downtown Columbus spread out in Legos. Created in collaboration with the Ohio Lego User’s Group, this show features familiar landmarks as well as fanciful new additions.

You can embark on a museum-wide scavenger hunt, dive into a Lego brick building zone and unleash your inner artist at a design-your-own Minifigure station. Fun!

How to go

What: “Quilting a Future: Contemporary Quilts and American Tradition,” “Accra! The Rise of a Global Art Community,” “Sarah Rosalena: In All Directions,” and “Think Outside the Brick: The Creative Art of Lego.”

Where: Columbus Museum of Art, 480 E. Broad St., Columbus. The Sarah Rosalena exhibit is at The Pizzuti, 632 Park St., Columbus.

When: Visitor hours at the CMA are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday through Sunday. Thursday hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The Pizutti hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday. The quilt and Ghana shows will end January 28. The Sarah Rosalena exhibit is on view through February 4 and the Lego show runs through Feb. 8

Admission: $18 for adults, $9 for seniors, students and children ages 4-17. Admission is free on Sunday and members of the Dayton Art Institute may be discounted depending on the level of membership. Admission for the Pizutti is $5. The museum’s first Community Day for 2024 will be held on Sunday, Jan. 14. The day includes free admission and special activities.

More: columbusmuseum.org and (614) 221-6801