PATRICIA AUGSBURGER: Day of the Thread

At Pueblo Nuevo, we love it all: we loved Renee Castro's wall painting; we loved Dignidad Rebelde's silkscreens; we loved Wixarika's photographs and collection of yarn paintings--so we are excited to have Patricia Augsburger bringing the art of quilting and textiles to Pueblo Nuevo this weekend (the opening reception is this Saturday, November 14 from 7 to 10 p.m.).

With Day of the Thread, Patricia Augsburger brings together a number of collaborators--who usually work in a variety of other mediums--to create works inspired by textiles and quilting.  You can check out the work of the other Day of the Thread collaborators here: Sophia Blum, Cathy Fairbanks, Laura Boles Faw, Lauren Hartman, Cynda Valle-Rogers, Izumi Yokoyama, and Steven McFarland.

Augsburger herself draws upon the long and beautiful tradition of American quilt-making, including the well-known women of the Quilter's Collective in Gee's Bend, Alabama and Amish Communities in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The Gee's Bend Quilters' traveling exhibit stopped at the De Young Museum a few years ago, and an Amish Quilting show is opening at the De Young this weekend.

Linda Pettway, "Blocks and Stripes" (2003), part of the Quilter's Collective

"Thirty-Six Patch variation (crib quilt)" (ca. 1930), from an Amish community in Arthur, Illinois

To make her quilts, Augsburger often uses pieces of the Kanga cloth; made and used in parts of East Africa the Kanga is a multi-purpose cloth that is used to wear, to carry, to decorate. The styles of Kanga cloths are always in flux, and range from geometric patterns to images of newly-elected Barack Obama to images of trees and even a statesman's car:

 

Augsburger's work combines these elements into quilts that are nothing less than global.  Augsburger's two quilts below were on display at the Washington D.C. Historical Society earlier this year as part of Quilts for Obama, an exhibition of quilts from around the U.S. that celebrated and welcomed Obama's presidency.

If you can't catch us this Saturday night, try to join us for one of our Sundays events. Follow us on Facebook for the schedule.

RANDOM RELATED KNOWLEDGE

And while we're on quilting and the Kanga, here's a little something about the complex mathematics that are part of--not just found in--African cultural practices. Many of us know that math has never been the exclusive property of academics, but the way this is broken down is enlightening. 

AND FINALLY

On Friday, November 13 be sure to check out Pueblo's Miguel Bounce Perez at La Pena Cultural Center's Hecho en Califas Festival, where he will be presenting Hecho en Berkeley, a multimedia anthology of Berkeley Low Rider culture in the 1970s. The opening reception is from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the cafe lobby; the show will be up until November 29.