Michael James (quilt artist)
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Michael Francis James (born 30 June 1949) is an American artist, educator, author, and lecturer. He is best known as a leader of the art quilt movement that began in the 1970s. He currently lives and maintains a studio in Lincoln, Nebraska.


Early life and education

James was the first of seven children born to an English and French-Canadian Catholic family in
New Bedford, Massachusetts New Bedford (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast (Massachusetts), South Coast region. Up throug ...
. After high school he enrolled at Southeastern Massachusetts University in neighboring Dartmouth (now the
University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMass Dartmouth or UMassD) is a public research university in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. It is the southernmost campus of the University of Massachusetts system. Formerly Southeastern Massachusetts Un ...
), where he studied painting and printmaking. After receiving his
Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...
degree in 1971, he moved to
Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...
, to attend graduate school at Rochester Institute of Technology, majoring again in painting and printmaking. While in graduate school he married Judith Dionne, a fellow art student from Southeastern Massachusetts University, and their son, Trevor, was born. Even as he pursued a degree in painting, his interest in the medium began to wane. Before the end of his master's program, he had decided that he had "nothing important to say in painting." Within months of receiving his
Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...
degree in 1973, he stopped painting altogether, turning his attention to fabric construction. James had experimented with patchwork and quiltmaking as an undergraduate. His growing enthusiasm for these processes in the early 1970s coincided with a national re-interest in traditional arts spurred by the approaching US Bicentennial celebrations. In the summer of 1971, the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
in New York exhibited selections from the quilt collection of Jonathan Holstein & Gail van der Hoof, a pivotal exhibition that attracted widespread media attraction. James eventually attended a lecture by Holstein and van Der Hoof in 1973 and later said, "The idea that quilts can be art may not have occurred to me had I not seen Amish quilts."


Early career

The growing nationwide interest in quiltmaking created a demand for quilting teachers, and in 1974, James pursued two opportunities to teach adult education classes in nearby communities in Massachusetts—at
Bristol Community College Bristol Community College (Bristol) is a public community college with four campuses in Southeastern Massachusetts. History The college was originally established in December 1965 when it was instituted by the Massachusetts Board of Regional Co ...
in
Fall River Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The City of Fall River's population was 94,000 at the 2020 United States Census, making it the tenth-largest city in the state. Located along the eastern shore of Mount H ...
and at the
DeCordova Museum The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a 30-acre sculpture park and contemporary art museum on the shore of Flint's Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was established in 1950. It is the largest park of its kind ...
in Lincoln outside of
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. Through his association with the DeCordova Museum, James met a group of like-minded artists from the Boston area. Other academically-trained artists had also turned to quiltmaking, several of whom participated in the June 1975 DeCordova exhibition, "Bed and Board," the third in a series of shows held in celebration of the Bicentennial and one of the first exhibits of non-traditional quilts in an accredited art museum. James was one of the sixteen quiltmakers included in the show. The experience served as a catalyst for him, and thereafter he aspired to introduce more contemporary design into his own work. In the spring of 1977, James published a three-part series of articles in ''Quilter's Newsletter'', called "Color in Quilts", that explored principles covered in his workshops. Shortly afterwards he was approached by
Prentice Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...
of Englewood, New Jersey, to write a book on quiltmaking. James's ''The Quiltmaker's Handbook: A Guide to Design and Construction'', published in 1978, focused on quiltmaking fundamentals, giving equal treatment to both hand and machine techniques. It also deconstructed the grid system upon which quilt block patterns are based and emphasized the importance of precision.


Artistic development

As interest in quiltmaking took off, so did James's career. He was awarded a Visual Artist's Fellowship by the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
in 1978, the first of three that he would receive from the NEA over the next twelve years. In 1979 he served as one of three jurors for the first Quilt National, an exhibition which became a biennial competition showcasing contemporary quiltmaking. By then James was traveling more extensively to teach short, intensive workshops rather than semester-long courses. In that same year, he was the recipient of a Craftsmen's Fellowship from The Artists Foundation of Boston. Beginning in 1980, James began to create his own striped yardage by sewing strips of cotton and silk together in sets of gradated colors, a development that would drive his work for the next fifteen years. The pieces for his quilt tops were cut from the stripped panels, adding complexity to the repeat block patterns. James published a sequel to his first instructional book in 1981. ''The Second Quiltmaker's Handbook: Creative Approaches to Contemporary Quilt Design'' used exercises from his workshops to explore theories and processes of designing original compositions, and detailed various technical aspects including curved seams and strip-piecing.


Strip-pieced quilts

Many consider strip-piecing to be James's signature technique. His pieced panels eventually grew to encompass 36 strips of fabric, each measuring ¾ to 1 inch wide, and were arranged in "luminous" runs of graded color and value. The quilts themselves could include up to 150 different colors resulting in intricate compositions that required dozens of pattern templates. It was for this work, too, that he earned his reputation as a colorist. In the early 1980s, James took his workshops overseas, first to
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and then, on subsequent trips, to
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
,
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
,
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, and other European countries. His courses emphasized design principles rather than quiltmaking techniques. Through his teaching he aimed to encourage quilters in their own design work by "demystifying color and pattern." In a 1985 ''New York Times'' article by Patricia Malarcher, Ulysses G. Dietz, at the time the curator of decorative arts for the
Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Af ...
in New Jersey, announced that the museum had commissioned a piece from James for their permanent collection and described the institution's acquisition policy. "The criterion is quality," he said. "That means not only technical excellence, but also distinctive style." The result was the first in the ''Rhythm/Color'' series, ''Rhythm/Color: Spanish Dance.'' It was also the first quilt in which James began to deliberately override the block structure. As James's work progressed through the mid to late 1980s, the grid-based composition of his designs became increasingly disguised. He strove to eliminate the traditional quilt block construction method from his work completely, as he felt that it was becoming "too predictable." By 1988, his quilts were still designed upon a gridded foundation, but the construction of the quilt tops no longer relied on square blocks. Between 1986 and 1989, he experimented with the overall silhouette of the quilt, breaking out of the standard, rectangular format. His work was described by newspapers and magazine articles of the time as "spacially complex," "airy", and "full of light and movement." In 1988 he was awarded a second fellowship from the Boston Artist's Foundation and another from the National Endowment for the Arts. His first European exhibit, "Michael James: Nouveaux Quilts," was shown that same year at Galerie Jonas in Petit-Cortaillod,
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, a gallery to which his work would return five times over the next two decades. By 1990 James was concerned that he had taken the strip-piecing as far as it would go, and he was doubtful that he would continue to make quilts as he felt confined by their limits of geometry. That year, however, he received his third grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a USA/France Exchange Fellowship. He spent three months, September through November, in an artists' residency in La Napoule, France, where he devoted his time to working with oil pastels and crayons on paper. He credits this brief hiatus from quiltmaking and the resultant drawings with the breakthrough he made after his return to his studio. By 1992, he had found a way to escape the grid structure altogether. James describes the quilts he made between 1992 and 1995 as a "last hurrah" for the strip-pieced panel technique, and he is best known for the work that he produced during this period. In 1992 James was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, his alma mater, and the following year, he was the 25th person to be inducted into the Quilter's Hall of Fame in
Marion, Indiana Marion is a city in Grant County, Indiana, United States. The population was 29,948 as of the 2010 United States Census. The city is the county seat of Grant County. It is named for Francis Marion, a brigadier general from South Carolina in the ...
. His quilt ''Quilt No. 150: Rehoboth Meander'' was acquired by the
Renwick Gallery The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum located in Washington, D.C. that displays American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that ...
of the
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...
in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, under the auspices of the James Renwick Alliance, in 1994. By 1995 he was spending twelve to fourteen weeks a year traveling in Europe and Japan to teach workshops and give lectures. James thought of Switzerland, in particular, as his "second home," as he had taught there every year since 1981. In the summer of 1995, he had a third solo exhibition at Galerie Jonas in Switzerland, which coincided with the release of a retrospective monograph of his work, ''Michael James: Studio Quilts''. The book included documentation of his quilt-building process, as well as photographs of the individual quilts. He was also one of five American artists invited to exhibit in the 8th International Triennial of Tapestry that year in Lodz, Poland, where his piece, ''The Metaphysics Of Action: Entropic Forms'' won a juror's citation.


Digital quilts

In the late 1990s, James became increasingly involved with activities at the
University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
in Lincoln. He served on the inaugural advisory board of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, (now the International Quilt Museum) which was founded at the university in 1997. In 1999 he was offered a full-time position as a senior lecturer in the Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design (now the Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design). This opportunity promised a means to integrate art theory and fabric construction in a collegiate textile program. In 2000 he relocated to Lincoln, Nebraska, and began teaching in the fall semester. Over the course of nearly twenty years on that faculty, he taught a range of courses including foundation design, textile design, and quilt studies. In early 2002, the textile department at the University of Nebraska acquired a Mimaki TX-1600X digital textile printer that could print reactive dyes on fabric up to 60 inches wide. Access to this technology motivated James to take his work in a new direction. He experimented with digital imagery and produced fabric using images from scanned hard copy or from photographs. He modified these images using Adobe Photoshop® and Illustrator®. James became chairperson of the Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design in 2005, a position that he held until his retirement in early 2020. Despite his increased academic responsibilities, he maintained an active studio practice with the help of assistants. In a 2010 article reviewing the exhibition, "Hand Craft: A Decade of Digital Quilts", at Metropolitan Community College near Omaha, Kent Wolgamott, arts columnist for the ''Lincoln Journal Star'', noted that a decade after James had moved to Nebraska, he had created nearly 100 quilts using digitally-developed fabric.


Late career

James’s wife Judith was diagnosed with younger onset Alzheimer’s Disease in 2009. A “movingly poetic” and “gently resigned” body of work emerged from his experiences with the progression of her illness that culminated in a solo exhibition at the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln from June 2015 to February 2016. The exhibition, “Ambiguity & Enigma,” was credited by Wolgamott as being James’s “best, most powerful exhibition this writer has seen either in person or digital reproduction.” James had a similar assessment saying, “I’m very proud of this work. I think it’s the strongest body of work I’ve done to date. There’s a rightness and a kind of perfection in these pieces I’ve not achieved before. If it turns out to be a kind of coda, that’s fine.” Judith died of the complications of the disease in August of 2015. They had been married 43 years. Shortly after his retirement from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, James donated the bulk of his papers related to the studio quilt movement to the Archives and Special Collections Department at the University Libraries. He continues to maintain a studio practice in Lincoln, Nebraska, and his work is represented by Modern Arts Midtown in Omaha, Nebraska.


Notes


References

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