July 4th - 6:00 p.m. CityFolk Festival Material Culture Stage Dayton, Ohio
Soammy and I are going to talk Quilts!
Material Culture exhibitor Soammy Feliciano-Hurst will be having a dialogue with regional quilt artist Cathy Jeffers on the Material Culture stage at the 2009 Cityfolk Festival during a session they have entitled, “Seeing Color, Music and Dance in our Latino-Styled Quilts”. Both quilters are of Puerto Rican heritage, and will both bring their unique cultural influences and vision to share with the festival audience.
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Several years ago… (now I think I was ahead of my time….) I made a quilt about Michael Jackson. I was in a summer quilt class and the news was just out that Michael had been acquitted- in the young-boy scandal. Everyone in my class shared their views… I made a quilt about it. I re-invented him as “The King Of Pod”- a new vision for the once great and honorable Jackson. Everyone loved the quilt until I told them the inspiration was about Michael. “Too controversial”- my gallery rep told me. I had to re-name it and make it “Tree Man” now like a little pod… growing.
Today, as I consider the King of Pop’s talent all these years, and remember how I loved the moon walk when it first appeared and how all the children were doing it…. I can’t help but to think how did you mess up so bad?
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Let me say this… there are many worthy causes and I would be proud to give a donation of my art to them without question. I have given to so many I couldn’t list them all here.
But here is my wake-up call. No more. Recently I was asked to paint a torso for a fund raiser for the heart association. Most of the artists were established and very talented. The torso could be interpreted in any material, so some were of clay, metal, glass, etc. I was asked by a friend to contribute a torso and I was only given four days to “come up with something.” Now, here is where it gets interesting, the people in charge, made judgments about the art before the auction even began. My torso was not placed with the others to be auction, but was placed near the food table as a “decoration.” Furthermore, it had no bid sheet and it also had been altered by someone… apparently to make it look better. New decorative items were added and the head and hair symbols were changed. When I went to return it to the original form, there were now big holes and the tape they used now removed the painted faux finish. One of the people involved in this owns a local art gallery in Centerville. Did she honestly think I wouldn’t notice? Is she always so disrespectful of others? She use to be an art teacher in my own town. Shame on you for allowing something like this to happen. I knew mine wasn’t a top contender-but only a truly insensitive individual would alter someone’s artistic vision and do what was done. Small town art politics— but it is a lesson of gross mishandling and let it be known… your ethics are awful.
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