Kelly Geist Assignment #2

I did not get a chance to attend Art Walk. However, I did go to Art Space and viewed an exhibit by Sara Mika which was called "In Stitches: Mended Mistakes". Basically, the exhibit was a bunch of small quilts which were made from 200 blocks of material which the artists bought online. She mended all of the small squares into several different quilts which had different fabric and were different colors but pretty much all looked the same as they all had flower designs on them. They were all hanging on the walls except for some pieces of quilt which were hanging on a clothesline from the ceiling. The artist also created postcards from pieces of quilt.

I wasn't that interested in the quilts hanging on the walls because they were all so similar and really didn't express anything to me except for the fact that someone stitched small quilts from random fabrics. I was more interested in the postcards that Sara Mika created because they seemed much more creative and personal to the artist. I was not able to take pictures of the exhibit but the postcard that stood out to me the most was called Peek a boo. It was made of pink fabric with black, pink, and grey buttons on it which seemed to be sort of randomly place. The postcard also had what looked like an x-ray of a human skull on it. The skull x-ray picture was towards the bottom right hand corner of the postcard in a circle and the buttons and pink fabric were surrounding it. There was also black and pink stitching randomly around it. Some of the pink fabric seems like it was dyed.

I'm not entirely sure what the artist was trying to say by putting a skull x-ray with this fabric. It just seemed very odd to me because typically when I think of a quilt, especially a pink quilt, a skull would be the last thing that would come to mind to pair with it. The rest of the postcards had things like shoes, or pretty designs on them. I think maybe the artist just chose to put a skull because it is so opposed to what you think of on a quilt. Peek a boo was very different from the rest of the pieces and seemed somewhat dark or creepy compared to the rest. It seemed like the artist wanted to make a piece that wasn't necessarily pretty or expected. When I saw this piece I just liked that it was sort of weird. I guess it sort of makes me think of how old ladies usually make quilts so maybe a skull could represent these old ladies who make quilts then die. It could also be that all the different fabrics that the artist collected once belonged to someone else and the skull could represent them. I don't know how the artist wanted viewers to interpret this piece or if it really has any meaning at all, it could be that she just liked the way it looked. That is what made me like it, I just thought it was an interesting piece to look at.

Kelly Geist