January 18, 2007
Quilt show will feature work by UW people — including scientists
The UW will be well represented in a quilt show opening at the Seattle Convention and Trade Center this weekend, and not all of the exhibitors are from the School of Art. In fact, three of the quilts on display as part of the Coming of Age exhibit of the Contemporary Quilt Art Association were made by campus scientists.
The juried exhibition is part of the 20th anniversary celebration for the Contemporary Quilt Art Association, which brings together people who are interested in making quilts for display rather than for use as bedclothes.
“A lot of our members come from technical backgrounds,” says Katy Gollahon, the manager of a pathology lab on campus and the association’s president. “We have physicians, accountants, lawyers, librarians — a lot of fields that require attention to detail.”
Gollahon discovered quilting just before she went to graduate school when she took a class in a quilting store, and says that if she could have found a way to make a living at it, she would have become a quilter instead of getting her doctorate in molecular biology.
Nonetheless, she thinks her two fields complement each other because both require creativity. “With quilts you get immediate feedback, whereas with science you sometimes have to wait years to get your reward,” she says. “I like the look of quilts and I like the quick turnaround.”
Bonny Brewer, who is on the faculty in the Genome Sciences Department, learned to quilt at the feet of her grandmother and aunt, who belonged to an old fashioned quilting bee in a rural area. But she got away from quilting for a while, only rediscovering it about 10 years ago, when a friend from graduate school came to town and “dragged” her to a quilt store.
“I started buying fabric,” Brewer says, “and before long I was making a quilt.”
Quilting, Brewer explains, requires many steps — buying fabric, making a design, cutting the fabric, sewing it, adding the lining. “There isn’t a part of it that I don’t like,” she says. “Quilting is very Zen. It calms me down. It’s very freeing.”
Brewer’s grad school friend is Janet Kurjan, another scientist who has a piece in the show. She now lives in Seattle and has been a visiting professor in the Genome Sciences Department.
The quilt show involves other people with UW connections too. Lisa Jenni and Sharon Rowley are currently enrolled in the UW Extension’s Fiber Arts Certificate Program. One juror, Layne Goldsmith, is a professor of art; and the other, Karen Soma, has a degree from the School of Art.
The show will be up in the Galleria Level 2 of the convention and trade center until March 26. It features 46 pieces — many of them for sale — by 34 artists, and admission is free. The artist reception is from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20.
