Cathy's Art Diary

Dazzling exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum of quilts made from Kaffe Fassett textiles. The introduction explained how Fassett formed a collection of fabrics for quilting with designers Brandon Mabley and Philip Jacobs and the exhibition then showcased quilts made with those fabrics. The effect in the space was beautiful and it hummed with colour. There was a mix of patchwork and appliqué work ranging from the tradition to works that were more like paintings. The show was full of ladies who were obviously needleworkers having long conversations about technique which at times made it hard to see the exhibits and read the commentaries. As someone who did patchwork in their youth, and has a couple of half-finished quilts, I felt it was slightly cheating to use material designed for quilting. To me it has been about using up scraps.     There was also a lovely display of Fassett’s needlework cushions which reminded me I’d done a couple which I must dig out ...

Colourful exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum of the work of Kaffe Fassett. You could not fail to be hit by the colour in this beautifully displayed exhibition which mixed patchwork quilts, needlepoint, knitting and paintings culminating in “The Orangery” a physical still life mixing all aspects of his work into a modern country house interior. The film was very interesting and well worth a watch to add depth to the objects. I was fascinating to hear him say that he felt he’d not really understood colour as a painter he only really discovered how colours worked together when he started working in yarn. He described pattern as “colours moving around”. It did leave you thinking of him as an artist rather than a designer. The real discovery was his paintings which were still lives of lots of similar objects either in contrasting or complementary colours. Of course I particularly liked the blue and white section!