Not just for the county fair: quilts on display at Sarnia art gallery

Paintings, sculptures ... and now quilts.

You'll be able to catch a unique exhibit at an art gallery in Sarnia from now until March 31. It's called "Kaleidoscope" and it's an exhibit of quilts, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Sarnia Quilters Guild.

"About three years ago the Sarnia Quilters Guild approached us," said Lisa Daniels, senior curator and director at the Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery. "It was quite an interesting conversation."

Her initial reaction was "ew."

"In the Lambton County area, we're famous for our fall fairs. We have incredible quilt displays at these fall fairs. We see quilts all the time, so how do we make this different."

The 170 members of the guild usually show off their work at fairs or craft festivals. Shows can display more than 200 quilts.

Daniels wanted to know what the guild hoped to achieve by having a quilt show in a gallery space.

"They wanted to inspire a new generation of quilters," said Daniels. "They wanted to shatter perceptions and they wanted to be challenged themselves."

That sparked Daniels' interest and the team came up with themes for a show.

"They're not art quilts, but they're inspired by the art," said Daniels — that's one of the themes for the show. Works that inspired quilts are on display with their quilt counterpart. Other themes include colour and history.

One of the ways they challenged the quilters was by distributing a colour wheel, and a rainbow of quilts was created.

There are 30 quilts on display at the Sarnia gallery.

Daniels said most of the quilts were created for the show and that she learned a lot about quilting as an art form. She hopes visitors to the gallery will as well.

"It's not your typical quilt show."

CBC News
Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Original Article