Plain Geometry: Amish Quilts
The series follows
desperados within the Amish community in Lancaster County, Pa., who take
the law into their own hands. And no, I ain’t talking issuing a ticket
for a double-parked buggy, brethren.
Imagine a land filled with
AK-toting outlaws; underground raves featuring gyrating, plain-dressed
harlots; and covert barn fights. Yes, barn fights.
“There’s nothin’ better to do on a Friday night than get punched in the face,” one cast member says.
Wanting
to share in the badassness, perhaps, the Museum of International Folk
Art unveils Plain Geometry: Amish Quilts this Sunday, a show that
“explores the origins and aesthetics of a tradition that has evolved in a
changing world.”
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t know that much
about the Amish before I hung this,” Bobbi Sumberg, the museum’s
curator of textiles and costume, tells SFR.
She’s standing
inside the Lloyd Cotsen gallery, where the exhibition is half-hung. “The
gallery was designed to create these view pathways,” Sumberg says of
the concentric layout.
She’s surrounded by the usual
accoutrements—ladders, hammers, blank reader rails and, in this
particular case, a handheld garment steamer.
In preparing for
the exhibit, Sumberg says she read and researched the traditionalist
culture as much as she could. “I tend to think about the Amish as The
Amish, when in reality there’s been a lot of splintering, a lot of
different congregations with very subtle differences in what they
believe—and therefore, they’re not these Amish; they are these Amish.”
These
differences are evident in their craft as well, as the 34 quilts that
compose the show run the gamut from the more traditional pieces, wherein
their makers resorted to intricate needle work—complex swirls and
grids—to create their own patterns, to the inclusion of once-forbidden
pastel colors and print fabrics.
Quilt-making, Sumberg notes,
was uncommon in Amish communities until the late 19th century. Before
then, they used feather-filled duvets and woven blankets, in keeping
with Germanic tradition.
Featuring antique diamond squares and
log-cabin quilts as well was more colorful examples from as recently as
1991, some of the works in this exhibit are so captivating that they
entrance the viewer with a quasi Magic Eye 3D picture effect.
“The
specificity which people live with,” Sumberg says, was one of the most
eye-opening surprises in preparing for Plain Geometry.
“This one group, although there’s no written rule, they would never use yellow,” she says.
The curator hopes visitors will take away more than geometric eye candy.
“I
hope that people will come and go, ‘Oh, I didn’t know how specific the
communities are,’” Sumberg says, adding that the show is 100 percent
secular. “I give just a little bit of information about the religion,
because really, the show is not about religion, it’s about quilts.”
(Enrique Limón)
Where: Museum of International Folk Art
Phone: 505-476-1200
Address: 706 Camino Lejo
Website: http://www.internationalfolkart.org/
