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Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Ohio, Ontario, Wisconsin, Manitoba, Nebraska, North
Dakota, South Dakota The Region III Events Calendar lists exhibitions
of costume, and costume-related exhibitions, the dates and
places of the National and Regional Symposia, lectures, and
workshops. Where available, a telephone number has been included.
Please use these numbers to obtain additional information.
Dates of exhibitions may change. Where available, dates for
the exhibitions are included. If no beginning date is given,
the exhibition is already open. CSA-sponsored programs in the Midwestern Region: Midwestern Region "Events, Workshops and Symposia" page.
The Bata Shoe Museum
327 Bloor Street, West
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5S 1W7
416-979-7799
http://www.batashoemuseum.ca/index.html
"Socks: Between You and Your Shoes"
What could be cosier than slipping into a pair of hand-knit socks? What about pair of warm woven grass socks or shimmery silk ones? For thousands of years, people around the world have sought to separate themselves from their shoes with all manner of socks. Some are humble, some are splendid but all were created to make us more comfortable as we walk through life.
Socks: Between You and Your Shoes will take visitors on a fascinating journey exploring the history of hosiery from around the world.
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"On a Pedestal: From Renaissnce Chopines to Baroque Heels"
Through September 20. 2010
The artifacts shown here are showcased in the Bata Shoe Museum's newest exhibition On a Pedestal: From Renaissance Chopines to Baroque Heels. The exhibition explores two of the most extreme forms of footwear ever worn in Western fashion, the outrageous platform chopine and its eventual replacement, the high heel. On a Pedestal offers visitors a once in a lifetime opportunity to see exceptionally rare examples of Renaissance and Baroque footwear on loan from numerous renowned International museums including: Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museo Bardini, Florence; Castello Sforzesco, Milan; Livrustkammaren and Skoklosters Slott, both Stockholm; Museo Palazzo Mocenigo and Museo Correr, both Venice; Ambras Castle, Austria; Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston and Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto as well as shoes from the Bata Shoe Museum's own collection.
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"Beauty, Identity, Pride: Native North American Footwear"
Ongoing
Created by Indigenous peoples from diverse regions of North America, ninety pairs of shoes, boots and moccasins will showcase exquisite craftsmanship, regional patterns, and beautiful decoration. The exhibition features rarely seen artifacts chosen entirely from the Bata Shoe Museum's foremost and comprehensive collection of Native footwear.
Canadian Museum of
Civilization
Hull, Ontario
819-776-7000
http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/index_e.aspx?ArticleID=16451
"Profit and Ambition: The Canadian Fur Trade, 1779-1821"
Through September 12, 2010
Relive an epic chapter of Canada's history and embark on a remarkable journey with the voyageurs, explorers and the many others who made up the fur trade.
The exhibition retraces the rise and fall of the Montréal-based North West Company, a commercial empire that pushed fur trade routes all the way to the Pacific Ocean. In the end, it laid the foundation for the Canada we know today.
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"Camouflage - From Battlefield to Catwalk"
Through September 6, 2010
There's more to camouflage than initially meets the eye, as visitors will discover at the Canadian War Museum. The innovative exhibition Camouflage traces the colourful history of military camouflage over the last century, from the simple concealment of soldiers and objects to the use of camouflage-inspired designs in a wide range of commercial and artistic products. It includes everything from hand-painted dummy heads, designed to draw sniper fire during the First World War, to vast designs for phantom armies and invasion fleets during the Second World War, to sophisticated computer-generated patterns used by today's militaries. This extensive exhibition shows how the art of military concealment and deception is a product of human imagination, artistic skill and scientific ingenuity, and how designs, applications and effectiveness have varied greatly over time.
The art of camouflage has evolved into a phenomenon of popular culture, now as likely to adorn children or fashion models as it is to mask soldiers or jet aircraft. The exhibition uses clothing, art, models, military equipment and other objects to tell the history of this deceptive art, which still makes soldiers disappear, but designer jeans stand out!
Chicago History Museum
Chicago, IL
312-642-5035
http://www.chicagohistory.org
"I Do: Chicago Ties the Knot"
Through January 3, 2011
Featuring more than fifty garments and other cherished heirlooms that make the Big Day so memorable, this exhibition is the first in-depth look at the Museum's vast collection of wedding costume. Arranged chronologically starting with the frontier bride and early items of courtship, the exhibition illustrates not only the change in fashion but also how wedding traditions have changed over the past one and fifty hundred years, noticeably marked by industrialization and the rise of the middle class.
Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, designs from the newly established houses of haute couture began to influence middle-class fashion and became an affordable option to many Americans. The department store rode this wave of economic growth, and the city's iconic Marshall Field and Company single-handedly ushered in the era of the retail bride with the introduction of the first bridal registry in 1924. Between the Great Depression and the Second World War, bridal trends saw their greatest changes. Today, wedding gowns reference the past-seen in hoop skirts and corseted bodices-but with an unparalleled sense of individuality and extravagance.
Each garment on view in the exhibition is from a Chicago wedding and shows a cross-section of the city's diverse people, from a shop girl's handmade cotton-and-silk dress to a Jewish socialite's Givenchy gown. Remarkable examples of complete wedding ensembles include gowns, veils, shoes, "setting-out" outfits, and lingerie, plus bridesmaid and mother-of-the-bride dresses.
Cincinnati Art Museum
953 Eden Park Drive
Cincinnati, OH
http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org
"Wedded Perfection: Two Centuries of Wedding Gowns"
October 9, 2010 through January 30, 2011
Wedded Perfection unravels more than 200 years of the evolution of the wedding gown paralleled with the social, economic and political status of the women they adorned.
Wedded Perfection features over 50 gowns from the late 18th-century to modern designers including Vera Wang, Yohji Yamamoto and Geoffrey Beene. Nineteenth-century economic expansion and the establishment of the bridal industry in the post-World War II era transformed the wedding gown from a symbol of purity to a vehicle for displaying wealth.
The exhibition will explore the 21st-century bride as the centerpiece of an elaborate theatrical presentation and her wedding gown as an integral part of the spectacle. Organized by the Museum's Curator of Costumes and Textiles Cynthia Amneus.
Costume Museum of Canada
109 Pacific Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 0M1
http://www.costumemuseum.com/
The Costume Museum of Canada has closed its doors at 109 Pacific Avenue, and the treasured collection is temporarily in storage. The museum is working to create a long term sustainable plan for itself, and will continue to update the website with news as it comes up.
The safe keeping of the collection of 35,000 artifacts is our number one priority.
Cranbrook Art Museum
Bloomfield Hills, MI
http://www.cranbrookart.edu/museum/
CRANBROOK ART MUSEUM IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Cranbrook Art Museum is building for the future! In December 2008 we started a construction project that will result in the complete renovation of our landmark 1942 Eliel Saarinen-designed museum, including the installation of climate control and the addition of a new state-of-the-art Collections Wing. During construction, our galleries are closed through Spring 2011.
The Goldstein Museum of Design
241 McNeal Hall
1985 Buford Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108
612-624-7434
http://goldstein.che.umn.edu
"Flights Of Fancy: A History Of Feathers In Fashion"
Through September 12, 2010
Historical and contemporary use of feathers in western fashion, including the origins of feathers commonly used in clothing, the international feather trade, activism and laws designed to protect endangered bird populations, and the psychological appeal of wearing feathers.
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"Bird Protection and Millinery: Exploring the Role of Fashion Media in the Debate" Exhibition Talk by Amy ScarboroughBird
September 8, 2010, 3 pm
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"Mao to Now: Chinese Fashion from 1949 to the Present"
October 2, 2010 - January 17, 2011
Apparel design changed radically in twentieth century China from post-dynastic complexity, through the ubiquitous Mao suit, to today's proliferation of contemporary trend-setters. The exhibition traces the development of apparel in China and introduces several of today's most influential designers. Appearances by featured Chinese designers will be co-sponsored by the University's China Center.
Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection
1300 Linden Drive
School of Human Ecology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI 53706-1575
608-262-1162
http://sohe.wisc.edu/HLATC/
Indianapolis Museum of Art
4000 Michigan Rd.
Indianapolis, Indiana
317-923-1331
www.ima-art.org
"Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA's Collection"
Through Jan. 30, 2011
Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA's Collection, on view from April 10, 2010 to January 30, 2011, will examine the many ways designers have manipulated, transformed and liberated the female figure. The exhibition will feature groundbreaking designs by Rudi Gernreich, Issey Miyake, Junya Watanabe, Thierry Mugler, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Gianni Versace and other avant-garde fashion designers. Body Unbound will explore how these designers used modern construction and unexpected materials to contort, conceal, reveal or mock their wearers.
Fashions by visionaries Rudi Gernreich and Jean-Paul Gaultier illustrate how some designers played with the notions of shape and construction, challenging mid-century ideals of form. Examples by Issey Miyake and Junya Watanabe, based on the theories of androgyny and "universal beauty," demonstrate how Japanese designers working in Paris in the 1980s and 1990s promoted an alternate way of styling the body, concealing its contours and silhouette. Pieces by Thierry Mugler, Gianni Versace and Franco Moschino display how designers utilized innovative textiles and subversive design elements to toy with the concepts of seduction and femininity.
Featuring a range of works, many of which are recent additions to the IMA's fashion arts collection, Body Unbound will demonstrate how some of the most influential designers of the 20th century helped shape the direction of avant-garde fashion. Organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA's Collection will be on view in the Paul Textile and Fashion Arts galleries. The IMA will be its sole venue.
Indiana State Museum
Indianapolis, IN
317-232-1637
http://www.in.gov/ism/
International Quilt Study Center and Museum
Quilt House
1523 N. 33rd Street
Lincoln, NE, 68583-0838
402-472-6301
http://www.quiltstudy.org/
"Childhood Treasures: Doll Quilts from the Ghormley Collection"
August 6 through December 12, 2010
Childhood Treasures will introduce audience members to the special charm of doll quilts and discuss their role in individual lives as well as in a greater cultural context. Mary Ghormley's collection, donated to the IQSC, contains more than 300 quilts made between 1800 and 1950. Collected over a forty-year period from all over the United States, the collection is one of only a few such quilt collections in the world.
Doll quilts are the smallest, yet some of the most endearing of quilts. When made by mothers for a young daughter's playtime, they embody love and care. When made by young girls as they learned to sew, they represent the first efforts in one of an eighteenth and nineteenth century woman's life-long responsibilities to her home and family - namely the sewing of all of the household textiles and family clothing.
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"South Asian Seams: Quilts from India, Pakistan, & Bangladesh"
May 15 through November 17, 2010
This exhibition will present an international textile tradition that is placed in a rich cultural context - that of the lives of women in diverse regions of the Indian subcontinent. The exhibition will consist of more than 30 examples of ralli and kantha. It will also feature a rich assortment of large-scale photographs depicting the lives of the women who make these quilts. Narrating and illustrating the lives of these women is a vital component of the exhibition's story-line. Patchwork, embroidery, and appliqué all figure prominently in ralli - a traditional quilted textile of the region. Designs are not customarily drawn or written down on paper, but rather recorded in women's memories and therefore passed down from generation to generation in the same way that folk tales and songs are transmitted.
In the eastern Indian states of Bihar and West Bengal and across the border into Bangladesh, women create kantha and sujuni bedcoverings using quilting stitches as the primary decorative elements. Constructed from layers of old cotton sari and dhoti (women's and men's wrapped garments), kantha provide a way for women to give new life to old cloth.
This exhibition is curated Patricia Stoddard in cooperation with IQSC staff. Stoddard is a leading scholar on Pakistani and Indian quilted textiles. Her book Ralli Quilts: Traditional Textiles of Pakistan and India is the only published work on the topic of quilts from this region.
Iowa State University
Mary Alice Gallery, Morrill Hall
Ames, Iowa 50011
(515) 294-4111
http://www.aeshm.hs.iastate.edu/exhibits/
The Mary Alice Gallery will be closed July 21 to August 15 due to road construction. The Gallery will resume normal operating hours August 16, Monday through Friday, 11am-4pm.
Kalamazoo Valley Museum
230 North Rose Street
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49003
800-772-3370
http://kvm.kvcc.edu/
"Out of This World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television"
Through September 12, 2010
Famous original costumes are featured from some of the most popular science fiction and fantasy films and television shows of all time. Indiana Jones's leather jacket and whip, Darth Vader's cape and helmet, and the Wicked Witch of the West's hat are a few of the cultural icons that explore the role of costume in defining characters. Organized by Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, Seattle, Washington.
Kent State University Museum
P.O. Box 5190, Rockwell Hall
Kent, Ohio 44242-0001
330-672-3450
museum@kent.edu
http://www.kent.edu/museum
“Stavropoulos”
Through September 5, 2010
George Stavropoulos was a New York fashion designer that built a multi-million dollar business on his signature, floating chiffon dresses. His self-titled label produced eveningwear and daytime styles for the wholesale, ready-to-wear market, from 1961 to 1991. While he was known for his use of chiffon, Stavropoulos also created notable designs in lace, lamé, suede, and taffeta.
Stavropoulos, born in Greece, believed in classic design and found inspiration in the simplicity of ancient Greek sculpture. Renowned for his innovative draping techniques, Stavropoulos created every piece in his collection and produced the entire line in his 57th Street atelier. For each spring and fall runway presentation, Stavropoulos created about one hundred designs and held his shows at the luxurious Regency Hotel, in Manhattan. Buyers from the most important stores in New York attended each show, as well as socialites and celebrities. Stavropoulos initially became known for dressing Lady Bird Johnson during her White House years and created looks for other popular figures throughout his career.
Fiercely independent, Stavropoulos did not participate in the licensing agreements popular with other designers of his time or join the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). Stavropoulos believed in his own fashion philosophy and refused to adhere to the ephemeral nature of fashion, creating sophisticated styles that incorporated classic design and subtle innovation.
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"The Kent State University Museum: Celebrating 25 Years"
Through February 13, 2011
Changing fashions exemplify the human desire for novelty. The 25 pieces in this exhibition represent the very tip of the iceberg of fashionable dress, and illustrate the evolution of fashion from 1750 to today. A survey of taste in silhouette, fabric and trimmings readily reveals enormous diversity. Over the centuries fashion choices have reflected relationships to an array of aesthetic and cultural environments. These choices register individual attitudes to prevailing social mores and reactions to a given artistic sensibility. The clothes we choose to wear when dressing each day become one of our most significant means of communicating who we are and how we feel. Collections of historic and fashionable dress, like that held by the Kent State University Museum, provide a very intimate record of personal choice and give insight into the unique ways individuals have responded to over-arching aesthetic trends.
On September 27, 1985, the Kent State University Museum opened its doors to the public for the first time. One of the nation's finest private collections of costume was given to establish the museum -- the donation of fashion industry entrepreneurs Jerry Silverman and Shannon Rodgers. It included 4000 fashionable and traditional costumes, 1000 objects of decorative art and 5000 volumes for the library. Since that time the collection has grown to 40,000 artifacts. Well over one million people have visited the museum in person, on the Web, or seen our name on objects loaned to exhibitions worldwide. Donors have enriched our collection and our endowment throughout the quarter century of our existence, and we are especially grateful for their continuing support. We embrace our mission to collect, exhibit, interpret and preserve the artifacts entrusted to us and to bring to the university and the greater community exhibitions that demonstrate the artistry and diversity of the world's peoples.
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"I Never Leave the House without a Hat!: The Savanna Vaughn Clark Collection"
Through October 10, 2010
Savanna Vaughn Clark has been wearing, collecting and enjoying hats all her life. She has said that she "never leaves the house without a hat." For Mrs. Clark, hats create a total look and she selects each one to compliment a specific outfit. A generous donor to the Kent State University Museum, Mrs. Clark has given the museum more than one hundred hats. Those selected for this exhibition date from the 1950s to the present day.
A woman of exceptional accomplishments, Mrs. Clark was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, received her Bachelor's degree from Prairie View A & M, her Master's from the University of Oklahoma, and did doctoral studies at Oklahoma State. She taught Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance at Tennessee State, Southern University, Langston University, North Carolina Central and the University of the District of Columbia where she also served on the Presidential Staff for Management, Retention and Recruitment.
Mrs. Clark has been an active contributor to a number of organizations, founding the Washington, D. C. Capital City chapter of The Links, Inc., an organization of black women dedicated to each other and to civic work. She was a founding member of the Women's Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, a founding member for the Kennedy Center Friends and Volunteers, Golden Circle and Honors Committees; Vice President of the Women's Committee of the Washington Ballet, and Chairperson for the Howard University School of Communications Scholarships. She served on the Executive Committee for YMCA Worldwide Refugee Relief. Her awards and citations include the Lou Rawls Trophy for her work raising funds for the National Negro College Fund, and three listings in Who's Who -- in Washington, Among Black Americans, and in American Education. She has garnered five National Best Dressed Women Awards.
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"Made in India: Indian Textiles, Global Markets"
Through March 20, 2011
The Kent State University Museum is proud to present this exhibition drawing from its extensive collection of clothing and textiles from India in order to highlight the dynamism, flexibility and variation of the nation's culture. Beyond the impressive assortment of historic garments, which are remarkable examples of "traditional" Indian dress, a sizable portion of the collection was produced in India for the western market. These items include both those pieces designed to be sold in India for the tourist market, as well as a number of pieces, which, while produced in India, were intended for export to and sale in Europe or America.
Rather than simply explore the rich and varied textile traditions of India this exhibit aims to trace the complex influences that Indian textiles have had on fashions in Europe and America. While this exhibit concentrates on objects which were made in India, the cultural exchanges in the realm of textiles and clothing over the past two centuries have gone in both directions. Not only have Indian products and designs traveled to the West and served as enrichment and inspiration, Western designs and goods have, in turn, exerted an undeniable influence of their own.
The history of cultural exchange between India and the West is complicated by the colonial relationship between India and Great Britain from 1858 until 1947. Rather than a free exchange of goods and ideas, Britain hampered Indian production and trade through restrictions and taxation. Through the establishment of unequal conditions for the textile industries, the British stifled the handloom industry in India in favor of its own production of machine woven cotton. Raw materials were imported from India to Britain where they were woven then re-exported back to India for sale. When Gandhi led the movement for nationalization, he chose hand-woven cotton as the symbol of national resistance. The simple, homespun cotton, known as khadi, which he wore for the rest of his life, embodied a symbolic resistance to British power, but the resulting boycott of British goods damaged the economy of the imperial power.
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"Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen"
October 2, 2010 through September 4, 2011
Ohio State University Historic Costume & Textiles Collection
Columbus, OH
614-292-3090
http://costume.osu.edu/
"Practical and Whimsical: Shoe Designs of Beth Levine"
September 8, 2010 through January 2, 2011
Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery
Second Floor
Home Economics Building, East Campus
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
http://textilegallery.unl.edu/
402-472-6301
"Microcosms: The Stitched Textiles of Tom Lundberg"
Through September 3, 2010
Lundberg wryly subverts notions of this genteel pastime of embroidery by composing and painstakingly needling unpredictable, surreal, perverse or mystical dream states that serve as cautionary statements about our relationships with both the natural and the built universes we inhabit. That he manages on such a small scale to embrace many of the paradoxes and mysteries of life is nothing short of breathtaking.
Born in Belle Plaine, Iowa, Lundberg now lives in Fort Collins, Colo., where he is professor of art at Colorado State University. He earned his BFA degree in painting from the University of Iowa and his MFA in textiles from Indiana University. For more than three decades Lundberg has been exploring the world at the tip of a needle, confidently and persistently articulating private views into and through common objects, backyard corners, windows and rooms, and verdant landscapes. Disembodied legs and feet appear in the least likely places; stars shine and shoot, waters stream, matches, tools and barbed wire pose menacingly. Here we find the poignant and pragmatic sensibility of a poem by Emily Dickinson, there the cool and obtuse detachment of an Edward Hopper painting, and now here the ominous foreboding of a David Lynch film, and sometimes variants of these conditions are rolled together into single complex yet intimate scenarios, each defined by thousands of minute stitches.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Cleveland, OH
216-781-7625
http://www.rockhall.com/
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
http://www.rom.on.ca
"Stitching Community: African Canadian Quilts From Southern Ontario"
Through September 6, 2010
This exhibition uses quilts made from 1848 to 1976 to explore the role of African Canadian women in reinforcing community ties in new and unfamiliar settings. It addresses the notion of developing social and familial ties through quilts while mainly focusing on the African Canadian community in North Buxton, a community whose foundation owes much to the freed slaves who settled in Canada, the land of freedom.
The exhibition is comprised of artifacts loaned from the Buxton Museum and items from the Ontario Black History Society (OBHS), including quilts, photographs, tools of the trade, and a variety of black cloth dolls.
Stephens College
Costume Museum and Research Library
Mezzanine level of Lela Raney Wood Hall
6 North College Avenue
(573) 876-7233
http://www.stephens.edu/campuslife/researchlibrary/
Textile Museum of Canada
55 Centre Ave
Toronto, Ontario
http://www.textilemuseum.ca
Textile Society of America
12th Biennial Symposium
"Textiles and Settlement: From Plains Space to Cyber Space"
October 6 through 9, 2010
Lincoln, Nebraska
Join us in Lincoln, Nebraska from October 6 through 9, 2010 for "Textiles and Settlement: From Plains Space to Cyber Space," hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design. This biennial event of the Textile Society of America will feature an outstanding and memorable program of over 100 presentations, exhibitions, workshops and an opportunity to network with a community of textile scholars and makers, professionals and enthusiasts.
Renowned architect Sheila Kennedy will open the symposium with her keynote address, "Energy Harvesting Textiles from Flat to Form." The following two days will feature plenary sessions by Dominique Cardon, "Natural Dyes, Our Global Heritage of Colors," and Judi M. gaiashkibos, "Native Threads - the Fabric of Tribal Traditions - When Fabrics Sing." Other highlights include textile exhibitions at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, the Sheldon Museum of Art, the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery, and over fifteen additional venues in Lincoln and Omaha. A timely workshop on the "Investigation of Natural Dyes: Reds and Purples" taught by Dominique Cardon and Elena Phipps and sponsored by a grant from The Reed Foundation will be offered the day prior to the symposium. Other workshops offered both pre and post conference include: "Jacquard: a Loom of Opportunity" with Julie Holyoke from the Lisio Foundation, "Ralli Quilts: Treasures from Pakistan and India" with teacher Patricia Stoddard and "Feltmaking" with teachers Janice Arnold and Chris
Martens. Special pre and post symposium tours will explore the arts, history, culture and textiles of the Great Plains.
This Textile Society of America Symposium provides an excellent occasion to learn, communicate, create and be inspired. Lincoln, Nebraska is a location that is easily accessed by many modes of transportation and the Cornhusker Hotel in downtown offers excellent accommodations at reasonable rates. A comprehensive program with details about speakers, workshops, tours, etc. will be available soon for viewing on the Textile Society of America website at www.textilesociety.org. Registration will begin online
by March 15. Please register early to assure your selections and take advantage of the early bird rates.
Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum
Decorah, IA
319-382-9681
http://www.vesterheim.org/
The exhibition will highlight the ways Norwegian Americans have expressed gender, family, community, religious, and ethnic identities through quiltmaking. "Although visitors might recognize a few favorites, most of the quilts in this exhibition have never been exhibited formally at Vesterheim before," said Laurann Gilbertson, textile curator.
One of the quilts in the exhibition that will be "new" to visitors is a crazy quilt dressing gown made by Helena Monson Rossing of Argyle, Wisconsin. Rossing, an immigrant from Land, Norway, and a milliner (hat maker), made the gown in about 1900. She embroidered Bible verses in English and in Norwegian on some of the solid colored fabrics. Many immigrants continued to speak Norwegian in the United States-at home and especially at church. "Helena expressed her religious identity in two languages, and also in a very creative way," explained Gilbertson.
To demonstrate ethnic identity, Vesterheim will exhibit several quilts made by Trudy Wasson (1938-2009) of Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Wasson, a rosemaler since the 1970s, began adapting her painting skills to quiltmaking. Her appliqué quilts with rosemaling (Norwegian decorative painting) motifs won awards in major American quilt competitions, all while expressing her connection to the traditions of her Norwegian parents. Wasson's daughter, Julie Baird of Plainfield, Illinois, dyed much of the fabric for the rosemaling quilts. Baird will teach a class at Vesterheim in August to combine her special fabrics with one of her mother's rosemaling designs.
Western Reserve Historical Society
Cleveland, OH
216-721-5722
http://www.wrhs.org
"Under the Covers" Quilts from the Collection"
Through October 2010
Vintage 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century quilts from the significant Western Reserve Historical Society collection are on display for the first time in nearly 20 years. The new exhibition, "Under the Covers," is open now through October 2010 in the Chisholm Halle Costume Wing of the Society's University Circle Complex.
Highlights of the 30 quilts on display include an 18th-century pieced quilt made from dressmaking remnants and worn garments, and a 19th-century presentation quilt made by the Daughters of the American Revolution and presented to President and Mrs. William McKinley. A third significant piece is a Centennial/Bicentennial quilt that was 100 years in the making. Donor Arnold Hegy Savage's great aunt pieced portions of this quilt in 1876, when she was six years old. In 1976, Mr. Savage completed the quilt using blocks made by his
"This exhibition displays quilts as historical artifacts, and not only as room dressing," said Dean Zimmerman, Chief Curator of the Western Reserve Historical Society. "Quilts are regularly displayed in our period rooms at the University Circle Complex and in the historic homes at Hale Farm & Village, but in this exhibit, quilts stand on their own as decorative objects and historical documents." The display also includes furniture, decorative arts, and objects that relate to quilt design and quilt making.
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