Northfield Arts Guild

Storied Design exhibit opens
2017-01-05 08:00 - 17:00 (America/Chicago) | Center for the Arts, 304 Division Street, Northfield, MN, 55057, United States
Photographs by Timothy Schacker and The Jewell Wolk Quilt Project presented by Jean Wakely
January 5 – February 4, 2017
Meet the artists and learn more about their work at the Artist Reception on Friday, January 6th from 6:30-9 pm. Light refreshments will be served.
From 6:30-7:00 pm Jean Wakely will present the story of The Purple Sandwich Quilt from The Jewell Wolk Quilt Project created by her mother, Jewell Wolk.
At 7:30 pm Artist Talks featuring Tim Schaker, Jean Wakely and Barb Pendergrass

The Jewell Wolk Quilt Project is a collection of 11 story quilts by Jewell Wolk (1924-2011) of Cut Bank, Montana. The quilts depict a wide scope of topics from Jewell’s childhood memories, her children’s lives, women’s history and biblical storytelling.
Jewell was a student of life, a teacher at heart, and curious person about life. She found her quiliting passion after her seven children left home. She was a strong believer in the art form of storytelling, which she felt was becoming lost in the multi-media age.
As Jewell entered her 80’s, she was going blind. The object of her quilts is not perfection in art nor in stitch, but in the story it depicts. Each quilt tells a story, about 45 minutes in length. Her quilts have traveled extensively, have been widely published and documented, and have been used for many storytelling events. Her daughter, Jean is creating a booklet for each quilt, and presents a portion of the collection in this exhibition.
Tim Schacker Artist Statement:
I have always been interested in the design of a building as a statement about our culture and way of life. A stunning example of this is the entire city of Brazila, Brazil where an entire city was designed to reflect the values and culture of a modern Brazil. The same can be said when local communities design and build a house of worship that reflects the religious values of the religion and the age and time in which it was built.
The photographs in this portfolio were taken in churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples over the last 2 decades of my travels throughout the world. They share a common theme of reverence and faith to what I think ultimately is the same core value. When I was traveling with my family on the island of Santorini, Greece our guide stood on the worn steps of the local church we were visiting and took the hand of my eldest son and placed it in the worn grooves of the banister leading up to the church entrance. He asked him to feel all of the stories, all of the hope, all of the grief, and all of the joy of the people who had walked these steps before him into his church that had been built 500 years ago. He called it an almost perfect place. I didn’t think to ask why it was “almost” perfect but now believe that he wanted us to understand that how we interpret our faith and the way we live in that faith is through our own human eyes and imperfections. This body of work, which continues to grow and evolve, examines our houses of worship, through a lens of when it was built and how it has served its faithful overtime.

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