Recently I presented an Artist Profile on West Coast artist Joan Schulze. Joan has just mounted a mid-career retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. The name of this show is Poetic License: A Retrospective by Joan Schulze. She kindly shared her work and some comments with me for the article.
Yesterday I received a note from Joan with links to two reviews of this exhibition. The first link is to an excellent blog called Venetian Red which is a very classy site featuring articles by more than one writer.
Link to Venetian Red: http://venetianred.net/ (You will need to scroll down the page to find the story)
This review was written by Liz Hager, a frequent contributor to this site, and it is one that I would love to have of my work and my efforts at some point. It a very refreshing piece as much for what it doesn't say as for what it does say. The writer talks about the importance of how Schulze has handled herself in her studio and her exploration of materials. I was very interested in the description of her fearless approach to working in a medium which can sometimes be somewhat oppressive.
Schulze has been working in a wide range of materials for some years and has been instrumental in breaking through to incorporate new materials and processes into her work. Hager points out the issue that I have seen before in regards to how the origins of innovations are often forgotten when the innovation is accepted by others and incorporated into their studio practice. Great point. It was great to see the examples she presented in the article of approaches to work from years past which we see now on a regular basis from other artists.
The second article was in the San Jose Mercury News.
This article was certainly nice as it was a full page story but it is more the standard newspaper review.
Hope you enjoy the links and go to your studios brave and powerful.
