Playing with Cloth quilt, Michi Miike

Exhibition Label:
“Quilting Time and Space,” Jun-2010, Sooa Im
Michi Miike has been making, teaching, and
writing about quilts in her native Japan since 1980. In this quilt, Miike placed nine rectangular
log cabin motifs in an even grid, but each log cabin consists of the asymmetrical patterns of a crazy quilt. Japanese decorative art on display at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia may be one of the foremost inspirations for the electric colors and irregular patterns of crazy quilts. International expositions like this were not only venues for countries to present their products and solicit foreign buyers, but they also served as a conduit of artistic interaction. Miike’s use of crazy quilt-an American quilt motif inspired by Japanese art-illustrates ongoing cross cultural interactions that weave artists around the world together beyond their time and space.

Archive Label 2003:
Michi Miike has been making, teaching and writing about quilts since 1980 in her native Japan. Her Playing with Cloth offers an interesting counterpart to the crazy quilt shown next to it. It is a contemporary version of a quintessentially American pattern-the log cabin. Log cabin quilts first became fashionable in the United States immediately after the Civil War. The pattern’s rise in popularity has been attributed to several factors. It may have been a political symbol showing Union support, a cloth of mourning for the death of Abraham Lincoln, or simply a design created by contemporary taste. Unlike the traditional pattern, Miike’s log cabins are made of irregular rectangles. The varied shapes of the individual pieces of cloth create a soft, kaleidoscopic effect. By modifying the usually rectangular motif, the artist has created a ‘crazy’ log cabin quilt.