It’s a Friday. January, the 3rd longest month of the year, is finally ending. I feel like I’m coming down with something (chugging vitamin C here). I cannot be sick any more. Forever. This year has been heinous for healthiness. My morning just started with some convoluted text of possibilities that I can’t get my head around (around which I cannot get my head). Although that’s been going around for a few weeks now. I am guessing that art censorship is going to be rampant for the next four years (and maybe some after). It already was an issue in some places, but AQS is at it again, censoring two quilts from the SAQA show Color in Context: Red. I really wish SAQA would disconnect from AQS, but I get that for most of the work, AQS is a good place for SAQA to get art quilts out there into different audiences. But seriously, can we get a better contract so they don’t randomly pull art? It’s so disheartening to be one of those artists. Here’s one of the pieces…by Laura Shaw, titled Your Mother. Your Daughter. Your Sister. Your Grandmother. You.
It’s a response to Roe v. Wade’s fall. You can see her statement and the shows it was pulled from here. The other artist is Yvonne Iten Scott. This is her work Origin.
You can see her statement on the SAQA link. My guess is AQS thought this was too much like a vulva. My goodness. SIGH. I personally joined SAQA years ago because my work didn’t fit in quilt shows (I’ve been told this so many times) and it’s hard to get gallery and museum shows on your own. I also joined some art groups, but some of the ‘fine’ arts think fiber art is a craft. So it’s difficult to find a place for yourself. I’m glad to see the SAQA board actually acknowledging the problem publicly this time, and I feel for these artists. It feels like shit to have your work pulled, often stupidly. I’m looking forward to seeing how SAQA handles this going forward. I have two quilts (both with nudity!) traveling with SAQA shows right now. Hopefully not to AQS shows because we know they have my name on a bullseye somewhere in their offices, just so they can throw darts at it. Double sigh.
In other news, my next censorable quilt is getting quilted. I’m going to run out of thread though…and there’s no way I’m hitting the deadline I think. I’m just going to throw up my hands and say oh well. It’s all I can do at the moment. I regret not working more on it over Winter Break, but that’s how it went. I got it sandwiched on Wednesday night (after pilates and 90 minutes of owl box installation…in the dark)…
Luckily the kitten was asleep, so I didn’t have to deal with him skidding into this.
Knee pads for the win…
Worked pretty well…she was pretty flat. I started quilting the same night…
And last night, fought the machine and thread loops.
So frustrating until I got it to behave. More of that tonight. I’m going to need binding fabric too. Hmmm.
That was it. I yelled too. Well, spoke firmly. One class was being stupid. Not surprising. There’s always one.
OK. Teach today…it’s a test plus finish all your shit. PLEASE finish it so I can stop bugging you about it. Then ceramics. I haven’t been able to get there all week, and there’s stuff out of the kiln. Then home and IDK what. I had date night dinner up, but IDK how much energy I have for that. Tomorrow the Man has a show and I’m driving to Palos Verdes for an art event…a venue that is NOT censoring things. My quilt is on one of the banners even. Awesome sauce. Hopefully not a horrendous drive for that. Long day though. Lots of art though. May it all be good.
Kathy Nida 