Wild by Design

Two Hundred Years of Innovation and Artistry in American Quilts

Author: Patricia Cox Crews and Janet Catherine Berlo Series: Wild by Design

Paperback

A lavishly illustrated volume celebrating innovative design in American quilting

Explores the two-hundred-year-old American tradition of freewheeling, improvisational, and asymmetrical quilts, whose makers experimented boldly with design, color, and pictorial motifs. This work examines the aesthetics and the social history of quilts from the nineteenth century onwards, including Amish, African American, and modern art quilts.

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Summary

A lavishly illustrated volume celebrating innovative design in American quilting

Description

"Wild by Design" explores the 200-year-old American tradition of freewheeling, improvisational, often asymmetrical quilts, whose makers experimented boldly with design, colour and pictorial motifs. It examines both the aesthetics and the social history of quilts from the early 19th century to the present, including Amish, African American and modern art quilts. From the state fair to the clothesline, women have sought ways to exhibit the beauty and optical effects of their quilts. The "quilting frolic" of the 19th century was for many women an alternative to the art academy and the salon. Janet Berlo reminds readers that quilts were a valued form of artistic expression, meant to be shared and admired among the company of other women. Over 50 applique and pieced quilts are illustrated, chosen from the collections of the International Quilt Study Center for their outstanding visual qualities. Each is accompanied by a lively dialogue among quilt experts that illustrates the varied dimensions of quilts as aesthetic objects of the highest order and as reflections of the lives and societies of their makers.This multifaceted analysis of quilts sheds light on the histories of women, textiles and American art and culture.

About the Author

Janet Catherine Berlo is professor of art history at the University of Rochester in New York. She is the author of Native North American Art and a memoir, Quilting Lessons, and is the editor of The Early Years of Native American Art History: The Politics of Scholarship and Collecting. Patricia Cox Crews is professor of textiles and director of the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the editor of Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers and A Flowering of Quilts. The book also includes contributions by Carolyn Ducey, Jonathan Holstein, and Michael James.