Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
Your Custom Text Here
Your Custom Text Here
An exhibition of quilts from Roderick Kiracofe’s collection alongside the exhibition Ramekon O’Arwisters: Flowered Thorns
Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2021
In the back gallery of Patricia Sweetow Gallery, renowned quilt connoisseur and collector Roderick Kiracofe will be sharing his storied collection of quilts. Shrouding our 12 x 12 foot gallery in quilt tops, along with finished quilts cascading from various containers, the environment promises an immersion in the stories and tradition of quilt making. His authoritative book, Unconventional & Unexpected, originally published in 2014 is now in its 2nd edition, and can be preordered through Quiltfolk.
We’re so pleased that Roderick has agreed to share this important collection with us. His collection is primarily from unknown makers, hailing from Texas, Alabama and other locations in the South and Mid-West. The beauty and creativity of pattern, color and technique radiate with or without origin stories. We are privileged to view a truly American art form, the collective lens shared by diverse communities of mostly women, conserved by the Kiracofe collection.
Installation images courtesy of Patricia Sweetow Gallery
Featuring quilts from Roderick Kiracofe’s collection
Iowa Quilt Museum, Winterset, IA
2021
Curator Linzee McCray writes: “I’ve always been attracted to the waste not-want not school of quilting. String piecing likely derived from the desire to use up every last bit, including the narrow strips of fabric that were too small to be used in traditional quilt blocks. When my mom passed away and I was cleaning out her sewing room—she sewed exquisite garments—I found the bundles of long narrow ‘strings’ that she’d carefully wrapped up to save and a lightbulb went off.“
Features contributions from collections and artists Teddy McMahon Pruett, Sujata Shah, Sarah Nishiura, Bonnie K Hunter, Siobhan Furgurson, Fern Royce, Tara Faughnan, Ann Brauer, Sheree L. Jimmerson, and Roderick Kiracofe
Read more about what curator Linzee McCray has to say about the exhibition.
Quilt from Roderick Kiracofe collection. Image: Linzee McCray.
Quilt from Roderick Kiracofe collection: String Star, c. 1910-40, found in Ohio, cotton, 86" x 77"
Left: Quilt from Roderick Kiracofe collection. Both center and right: Teddy Pruett. Image: Linzee McCray.
Labels from "quilt bundle" scraps, likely from pajama material in a Teddy Pruett quilt. Image: Linzee McCray.
Left to right: Bonnie Hunter, Sujata Shah, Ann Brauer, and Tara Fauhnan. Image: Linzee McCray.
Quilt from the Roderick Kiracofe collection.
Curated by Roderick Kiracofe
San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, San Jose, CA
2015
Found/Made is an exhibition about the conversation between quiltmaking and art-making. Quiltmaking itself is investigating, gathering, “finding” materials to collage, to assemble, to “make” something entirely new. Art-making is a similar investigation and can borrow from myriad disciplines as well as the established practice of quiltmaking.
“Found” quilts from the collections of Allison Smith, Julie Silber, Marjorie Childress, and Roderick Kiracofe call back to the history of quilting as a practice long associated with American history; and yet it is a practice constantly updating and influencing contemporary art-making and popular culture. These quilts date from the 1940s to end of the 20th century. Often at first, these traditionally-minded quilts feel typical, but upon further examination they begin to question form, function, and push against their very patterns with the makers’ choices of printed fabrics, coy hues, and secretive deviations.
What is art-making apart from subversion and challenging older histories to make them new and fresh? With practices in proximity to quiltmaking, these ten contemporary artists actively take up “making” as they blend ideas of icons of everyday life, comfort, vulnerability, lurking danger, and the sinister.
Juxtaposing a variety of materials and a variety of “quilting” strategies, these objects found and objects made challenge how histories and ideologies are constructed. There is an agency in each maker, in each “find-er” to determine what they are saying with their assemblage.
Artists and makers featured Joe Cunningham, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Dana Hart-Stone, Luke Haynes, Clay Lohmann, Therese May, Sarah Nishiura, Jonathan Parker, Amy Trachtenberg, and Ben Venom
Quilts from the collections of Marjorie Childress, Julie Silber, Allison Smith, and Roderick Kiracofe
Luke Haynes, [The American Context #5] Flag, 2010, made from pieces of a larger flage found discarded at Goodwill. Courtesy of the artist.
On plinth: Ben Venom, No More Tears, 2013, used denim jeans and fabric, hand-made quilt. Courtesy of Kevin King. Hanging left: Quilt courtesy of Marjorie Childress.
Detail. Unnamed maker, Original Design, reverse, c. 1930-50, cotton, flannel, rayon, tied, also quilted with red thread. Courtesy of Marjorie Childress.
Ben Venom, In to the Night, 2013, Harley Davidson t-shirts, leather, and fabric, hand-made quilt. Courtesy of Holly Ellis.
Detail. Clay Lohmann, Ear of the Horse, 2014, ink, pencil, embroidery, safety pins on cloth, and found and donated cloth objects, quilted with assorted batting. Courtesy of the artist.
Clay Lohmann, Blue Moo, 2012-14, oil paint on panel, denim, and upholstery fabric, quilted with silk batting and linen backing. Courtesy of the artist.
Featuring quilts from Roderick Kiracofe’s collection that appeared in the eponymous publication and exhibited concurrently with Shaker Stories
Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, CA
2015
Never before has there been an exhibition of maverick quilts like this one.
Unconventional and Unexpected shows how primarily anonymous, often self-taught women working below the radar of the art world have often produced quilts for everyday use in their homes, that nonetheless articulate many of the same issues that have been at the core of the development of modern art during the second half of the twentieth century. The exhibition presents a selection of visually stunning pieced quilts and quilt tops from the mid to late 20th century from the collection of Roderick Kiracofe.
Image: Robbi Pengelly, Sonoma Index-Tribune
Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
2011
Lena Wolff curated The Paper Quilt Project at the Berkeley Art Center. In collaboration with Jason Hanasik, we made ”His Past Was Always Waiting for Him in the Future”, a video installation projected on to the back of a quilt.
Krowswork, Oakland, CA
2014
Site specific installations by Roderick Kiracofe, Karen and Malik Seneferu, Nicole Shaffer; video by Sanford Biggers
What do we learn from the back, that which is usually not seen? I am fascinated by the backs of quilts and quilt tops. I also love the WPA photographs of the interiors of sharecroppers homes. My installation uses the backs of quilt tops and quilts along with a collaborative video piece with Jason Hanasik. I wanted to allude to the types of homes in which these textiles may have originated.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY RODERICK KIRACOFE
![Luke Haynes, [The American Context #5] Flag, 2010, made from pieces of a larger flage found discarded at Goodwill. Courtesy of the artist.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53462ccfe4b087d212102e54/1632512918164-EQWVUE8B1UDJ6N1BCA0V/Luke+Haynes+Flag+with+viewer.jpg)
