Blue Jeans

I remember hearing about the Gees Bend show at the Whitney. Folks were saying how amazing the quilts were, that they were more than just quilts, that it was worth seeing. I never ended up seeing the show, but I remember for a chunk of time I kept hearing about it. What was most interesting about Kalina’s article was the description of the various materials, particularly the use of workman’s jeans and the stains of the land and quilts that were sometimes made up of so much of the jean that they almost took the form of the wearer. Its neat to think about the darker blue lines revealed from opening seams that had not been exposed to wear and tear. It must have been incredibly impactful seeing these pieces on the white gallery walls, when they were made to stand out on a clothesline.The show really sounds great, however, no matter how you put it.. no matter how many labels and names and descriptions there are, folks are still going to be viewing the work out of context through an outsiders lens. Maybe these things help us to get closer to the work and form a deeper appreciation or understanding of what we are looking at. But in the end, its true… we really will respond to the objects themselves and how they succeed or fail in their ability to draw us in. The Gees Bend quilts seem to be sort of in that gray place between historical objects and art objects. As historical objects it’s important to know about their life and place and context, as art objects they enter into a different sphere. It’s like the whole thing about whether or not we choose to read the label when we look at a painting. Do we want to suck in all that we can just from our visual experience or expose ourselves to the artists intentions, name, title, materials. Sometimes these things lend to the work, detract from it, or are completely forgettable and unnecessary to our appreciation.