Kay Sekimachi: Ingenuity and Imagination

&

Virginia Davis: Art and Illusion

&

The Museum Collection Survey

Special Exhibit opens at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles on Friday, June 6th through Sunday, September 14th.

Thursdays, Fridays | 1 pm to 5 pm
 Saturdays, Sundays | 11 am to 5 pm

Kay Sekimachi: Ingenuity and Imagination showcases more than 40 works from Berkeley collector Forrest L. Merrill’s comprehensive holdings, that represent every decade of this internationally renowned Bay Area artist’s long career.  Sekimachi combined influences from her Japanese heritage and early training in painting and drawing with a thorough exploration and mastery of complex technique. On view are ethereal hanging sculptures; delicate, origami-like printed artist “books,” bright seamless lidded boxes, abstract textile wall hangings, and weightless bowls and baskets made of Japanese paper and desiccated leaves that push the boundaries of what might be considered a textile.  This is a not-to-be-missed chance to see the full scope of this pioneering artist’s work.

Virginia Davis: Art and Illusion celebrates the museum’s recent acquisition of 21 textiles, a generous gift from Davis’ sons that explore Davis’ interest in optic phenomena, art, and textile history, and technique. Master weaver Virginia Davis (1929-2023) discovered weaving in the 1970s and over the ensuing 40 years created a significant body of work that manages to be simultaneously elegant and bold. The exhibition will feature 21 textiles that explore Davis’s interest in optic phenomena, and art and textile history and technique.

The Museum Collection Survey is a dive into Kay Sekimachi's contemporaries and weavers from the California weaving movement, selected from our permanent collection. The curator of this collection survey, Joyce Ertel Hulbert, is a former staff member and member of this Museum’s Collection Committee 2006 - 2018. Since leaving the Museum in 2013 to return to her art and textile conservation practices, she has been researching and mapping the history of the California textile art movement, and has organized exhibits and built grant proposals to advocate for an online archive of this history.