On Saturday, a new exhibition entitled Amish Abstractions: Quilts from the Collection of Faith and Stephen Brown opens in the Textile Gallery of the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.
When you hear the word Amish, it usually conjurs up images of plainly dressed men and women who are quiet and perhaps trapped in an earlier time period when things were simpler.
Yet their quilts are anything but quiet and simple, and it’s this inherent contradiction that makes their quilts so interesting. While Amish faith embodies principles of simplicity, humility, discipline, and community, their quilts are anything but humble.
The Amish quilts you’ll see in the exhibition are vibrant with color and feature bold patterns. Collectors Faith and Stephen Brown recall “We were amazed by the bold graphics and striking colors, the very opposite of what we had expected.”
The quilts on display originated in communities throughout Pennsylvania and the Midwest and date from the 1880s to the 1940s, the height of Amish quilt production.
Exhibition curator Jill D’Alessandro of FAMSF explains, “Although Amish women first learned quiltmaking from their ‘English’ (non-Amish) neighbors, they quickly developed a unique sensibility of their own, coupling distinctive choices of quilt patterns and fabrics with unusual spatial arrangements.â€
On December 5, a symposium entitled Amish/American: Quilts in Context, will be held at the de Young from 1–4pm. Get an in-depth look at the art of Amish quilts through the eyes of a diverse panel of speakers, who will each talk about a different aspect of the Amish quiltmaking tradition. Get more info and tickets.
Amish Abstractions: Quilts from the Collection of Faith and Stephen Brown opens this Saturday and runs until June 6, 2010.
Sarah B.
Nine Patch, Kalona, Iowa, ca. 1920.
Unnamed Pattern (crib quilt), Somerset County, Pennsylvania, ca. 1930.