Art Exhibition Oct. 21, 2005 – Jan. 14, 2006
Contact: Kathryn Jovanelli 207.561.3352 kj@umit.maine.edu
The University of Maine Museum of Art presents two new exhibitions.
Bangor, Maine – Two exhibitions open the fall season at the University of Maine Museum of Art. No Two Alike … focuses on quilts created between the 1960s through the 1990s and based on the “Square-in-a-Square” pattern. Created and pieced by artisans from throughout the south, all are part of the 2500 piece collection of quilt collector and scholar Eli Leon. Melonie Bennett features the black and white images of the Gorham, Maine photographer that document the exploits of her extended family with humor and wit.
No Two Alike: African-American Improvisations on a Traditional Patchwork Pattern
Improvisation is a defining and intriguing characteristic of the province of African-American quiltmaking that suggests its African roots. Only in the last quarter of the 20th century has this art form received scholarly and critical attention while much of the genre remains to be explored. No Two Alike: African-American Improvisations on a Traditional Patchwork Pattern features 18 quilts from the extraordinary collection of Eli Leon, a quilt scholar and resident of Oakland, California.
African-American improvisational style is an overall approach to organizing visual space and elements such as color, line and shape – an approach based on cultural preferences and tradition infused with a sense of impromptu innovation. The artists in No Two Alike, 20th century African-American quiltmakers, speak of making the quilts “something of your own,” of piecing “something different from somebody else.” Each quiltmaker is talking of style, of the individuality and personality expressed through her work. Style as an individual expression is even more pronounced in this exhibit where the organizational focus is on specific improvisations in the “Square-in-a-Square” pattern. The exhibition catalog for No Two Alike includes an essay by Eli Leon which addresses the concept of improvisation, with careful analysis of the design and individual inventiveness of each quilter. His interviews with the quilters also inform the biographies he has written of each of the artists.
No Two Alike, comprised of show quality African-American “Square-in-a-Square” quilts displaying varying forms and degrees of improvisation, is intended as both an exposition and a celebration of African-American improvisation. The quilts in No Two Alike were made in the 1960s through 1990s by 20 quilters, most of whom grew up in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Many of them currently live in San Francisco Bay area, Texas, and Louisiana.
Beginning in 1988, Eli Leon has loaned works from his collection and curated notable exhibitions including Who’d A Thought It: Improvisation in African-American Quiltmaking, Models in the Mind: African Prototypes in American Patchwork, and Something Else To See: Improvisational Bordering Styles in African-American Quilts.
MELONIE BENNETT
Melonie Bennett is a Maine born photographer who has watched her family and friends through the lens of her camera for over 15 years. “My photography is on ongoing visual diary of my family and friends and the times we share together,” she writes in an artist’s statement. “I developed my point of view growing up on a dairy farm in Gorham, Maine.” The humor in her work, along with the deep affection she feels for her subjects, sets Bennett’s candid, black and white photographs apart from those of her documentation peers. These images are intimate invitations into the daily lives of one big and boisterous rural Maine family. Bennett, who emerged on the Maine art scene in the mid-1990s, has exhibited throughout the state, in galleries in New York City, and around the Northeast.
Image Information
Gladys Henry (1906 – 1996)
SQUARE-IN-A-SQUARE, Pieced by Gladys Henry, Freestone County, TX, 1993. Quilted by Irene Bankhead, Oakland, CA, 1994.
Lee Wanda Jones (b 1934)
ROAD TO NOWHERE, Pieced by Lee Wanda Jones, Emeryville, CA, 1988. Quilted by Willia Ette Graham and Johnnie Wade, Oakland, CA, 1988.
Bessie Mae Frost (b 1920)
SQUARE-IN-A-SQUARE, Bessie Mae Frost, Oakland, CA, 1984
Melonie Bennett (b 1969)
BRIDGET, BRITTANY AND WALDO, HALLOWEEN, 2000
Gelatin silver print
For additional information please call Kathryn Jovanelli at 561.3350.
Museum of Art
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 9 am – 5 pm. Sunday 11 am – 5 pm.
Admission: $3.00 per person. No charge for Museum Members and UM students with Maine Card.
Directions
From the North
I-95, Exit 185 (formerly 48) – Broadway, (Bangor, Brewer)
Turn left at light onto Broadway, Rt. 15
At the 4th light (1.2 m), turn right onto State St., Rt. 2
At the light at the bottom of the hill (.1 m), turn right on to Harlow St. (a one-way street)
Merge into left lane, turn left into parking lot of Norumbega Hall.
From the South
I-95, Exit 185 (formerly 48) – Broadway, (Bangor, Brewer)
Turn left at light on to Broadway, Rt. 15
At the 3rd light (1.1 mi), turn right onto State St., Rt. 2
At the light at the bottom of the hill (.1 mi), turn right onto Harlow St. (a one-way street)
Merge into left lane, turn left into parking lot of Norumbega Hall.
Kathryn Jovanelli
Administrative Associate
University of Maine Museum of Art
40 Harlow St.
Bangor, ME 04401-5102
207.561.3350
www.umma.umaine.edu