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San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles
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5 reviews for San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles
First stop on your SOFA art walk Fri 5/2/09. When we walked in there were some stuff to buy, then around the corner is more stuff to buy. They were having a sale & silent auction of textiles & such.
The art exhibit "Reservoir: John M. Walsh III Collections" showing May 5-July 26, 2009 is pretty good.
No Photos allowed in the gallery. Don't touch either.
Separate bathrooms available.
Hrs: Tu-Sun 10-5
Admission: Free to members & children under 13
Adults: $6.5, Seniors & students $5
FREE All Day on the First Fri of ea Month!
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The current exhibition, 'Changing Landscape: Contemporary Chinese Fiber Art', is pretty rad. After walking around the museum for a bit I said to my friend, "I usually don't like this museum, but this show is pretty cool. Maybe it's because there aren't any quilts?
Supposedly it's the first Chinese fiber art show ever in the U.S. I find that hard to believe especially considering Chinese people live in the U.S.
The cookies were really good at the opening reception! Oatmeal, double chocolate, and chocolate chip. They tend to have some of the best free refreshments.
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1 Previous Review: Show all »
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4/7/2008 First to Review
The exhibitions of this place varies. I'm not a huge fashion or textiles fan so please note my… Read more »
I had been wanting to go to this museum for quite awhile, because I am a quilter and had run across their website and heard about them for years. yesterday, I grabbed up Mom and we drove up. After an initial problem in finding the museum, we fed the parking meter in front and ambled inside for a look.
The bored cashier was eager enough to take our 6.50 admission price (5.00 for seniors), but mostly she and her counterpart in the museum store were bored and more bored. I guess that this might be because Mom and I were the only people in the museum. It was nice to have the museum to ourselves.
Down one hallway and around the walls of the first room on the left were 15 quilts of Dorothy Vance, a quilter from Berkeley who had an eye for both stitchery, political humor and quilting. You could track her progress from the early quilts made for children or grandchildren to the politcial satire quilts such as "Call Me Doctor". I love the Quilt titled "People of the Cloth" which included ministers and such with a small, but pithy saying of each. What was amazing was the breadth of ministers included from St. Barnabas to the minister from the Simpsons. It's easy to see how this quilt won a third prize at the 2004 Marin Quilt & Needle Arts Show.
Through the double doors, in two gallery spaces was the exhibit, "Beyond Knitting: Uncharted Stitches". This was an exhibit of extreme knitting, using all sorts of materials (wire, plastic bags, felt, yarn) to express all sorts of themes (rage against the war, powerlessness, hopefulness, sexism). This is a very powerful exhibit, but it not for the squeamish. One of my favorite pieces was by Blanka Sperkova, "Madonna of the New Age" which was a large metal knitted woman, suspended in air. Because she is somewhat transparent, you can see that she is pregnant.
The last large gallery space held an exhibit of Batiks and figures called, "In Javanese Moonlight: Sha Sha Higby" . The Batiks were very fine and the figures were absolutely stunning.
We were given on program when we walked in and reading it gave us more information and background behind the pieces. It's too bad there weren't more places to sit and read the program. I see now that I should have returned the program when we left.
The museum gift store was disappointing. Usually I like to buy a catalog of the exhibits, because I like to revisit the visuals in my mind. If i can't find a catalog, I like to buy some postcards. The museum didn't have either for sale. The did have handcrafted quilts and beads and nice things, but ... we both left without buying anything.
On the way out, we went into an alcove and discovered the Hausner Coral Reef exhibit made by the Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School seventh grade class. Not only was it beautiful, but it was accompnied by a notebook of impressive research by the students. I loved the fact that they used art, hands, mind, research, and electronic publishing to pull together their knowledge and concern about the coral reefs. One part of the "reef" (made entirely of yarn) was vibrant and living, while another part was white on white or dying and dead. For a little more information and small photos of the Coral Reef: http://www.theiff.org/...
So, let's recap.
I really liked the exhibits, but I was disappointed by the museum's size (more, I wanted MORE!!), and I wanted more quilts, of course. I loved the Coral Reef, but wasn't crazy about the museum store or it's employees. I thought the museum guide was helpful, but wanted more places to sit and read it. Will I come back? Maybe to see a different set of exhibits!
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Yeah it feels a little weird here but the coral reef is really cool! Like super cool. We spent half of our time here looking at the reef.
I accidentally touched a piece before I saw the "No touching" sign.
The rest of the museum is part folk art (special exhibition), part political forum (half of the pieces were made by the one of the museum's curators), and part mish mash.
The $6.50 admission fee is a tad steep for the less than 500 square feet of "gallery" space.
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I wouldn't have gone to this museum unless the world famous Hausner Crocheted Coral Reef Opening was not there. The place was ok, but the Hausner crocheted coral reef was amazing and definitely made the trip worth wile. The crocheted coral reef was phenomenal and the students and the science teacher (Mr. Harms) from Hausner should be very, very proud.
I give the museum 3 stars but the Crocheted Coral Reef 5 stars!
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