As members of Studio Art Quilts Associates, we are always on the lookout to see the exhibitions the organization mounts. It’s a way for us to do some networking and see great art at the same time. We usually have to travel to do this, but in September we’ll get to see SAQA’s “Stitching California” in Deb’s ol’ stompin’ grounds of Rancho Cordova, just east of Sacramento.
MACC
The exhibition will run Aug 2 – Sep 27, 2020 in a little gem of a gallery called the Mills Station Arts and Culture Center. It’s located at one of Sacramento’s light rail stations, so you can get to it pretty easily without a car. When you first walk in, the gallery seems rather small, but it winds around the stairwell and elevators to expose a fairly large gallery that’s still easy to walk through. By the way, the second floor holds a wonderful meeting space for all you meeting organizers out there!
Since we have a piece in “Stitching California,” we volunteered to check in with the gallery to see if we could help enhance the programming around the exhibit. We put on our networking hats and introduced ourselves to Cheryl Gleason, MACC’s event coordinator and curator. Wow! She is friendly, enthusiastic, and supportive. We can’t wait to work more closely with her. She was full of ideas on how to make the SAQA exhibit more accessible and interesting to her visitors. Ya know, she didn’t seem that tall when we were talking to her!
On View Now
The reason we went to MACC this week was because they had the opening of an exhibit called “Our Voice: Celebrating the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards.” Wow! Click here to read more about the awards, but let’s just say these African American illustrators of children’s and young adult books are incredible. It was so cool to be able to view the actual art next to the book it appeared in. We had many favorites. Here are just a couple:
We loved the batik quality in John Steptoe’s Mother Crocodile (1981). Steptoe was such an important illustrator that one of the awards is now named after him. Click here to read more about Steptoe, whose life was too short. It’s sad to think about all the beautiful and evocative art we don’t have because he died so young.
In Michele Wood‘s I See the Rhythm (1998), we immediately felt Wood must have been inspired by Faith Ringgold‘s work. Just look at the quilt-like patches and “stitching” that Wood has used to such interesting effect.
Ashley Bryan‘s illustration for I’m Going to Sing: Black American Spiritual Volume 2 (1982) is such a wonderful homage to block printing. We just love block printing, and this is a fine example. Just look at the stairs, the garbage can, and even the bubbles. They’re perfect. Take a second look at the faces to see the joy in the people’s faces as they spend some time on their doorstep.
The exhibition runs through Mar 21, 2020. If you have a chance to go, tell us which piece is your favorite. And try some networking while you’re at it. You won’t be disappointed.