Having been introduced to Noah Purfoy’s inprovisational art in everyday and cast away objects, by my godson Francis Gonzales, I asked if he was familiar with Gee Bend’s quilts, where improvisation of available materials is part of the charm of the pieces. He was. So we made a trek to BAMPFA to see an retrospective exhibition by Rosie Lee Thompkins, an artist from Richmond, California.
Rosie Lee Thompkins—a pseudonym adopted by Effie Mae Howard—is recognized as an accomplished and inventive American quiltmaker of the late 20th and early 21st century. She was born in Arkansas in 1936 and learned to quilt from her mother, but she did not practice quilting professionally until the 1970s, when she was living in Richmond, California. She credits her artistic ability to God and
Her quilts are delights of design, composition, color, shape, and texture. Recognizing her ability to quilt as a gift from God, she her artistic work has been directed to her healing and spirituality. They are works of improvisation from found materials that demonstrated whimsy, creativity and functionality. Some are abstract pieces of color, shape and texture that dance to visual music and the viewer to touch and feel. Other pieces have recognizable images that honor and narrate a political or social perspective. Not a few have scripture verses stitched into the material, perhaps indicating the spiritual dimensions of the work. In one particular piece the script is an abstract stitch woven across the span of the fabric.
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| observe that the stitching is actually a narrative. |
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