Crazy Too Quilt

I wanted to push the boundaries of weaving. What could I make weaving do that no one had done before?

--Lia Cook

In the 1980s, San Francisco Bay Area artist Lia Cook used paint to simulate the look of historical women's work like drapery, crochet, and quilting. Here, Cook was inspired by her great-grandmother's Crazy quilt--a nineteenth-century style that stitched together assorted patterns and textures into elaborate, asymmetrical blankets. Cook explained, "I remember her talking about the different fabrics within it, like my grandfather's top hat. So, I decided to create these imitation Crazy quilts." She painted the appearance of patterned fabric by applying strokes of acrylic paint onto woven abaca paper (a fibrous paper made from banana plant leaf stalks). She then pieced together the swatches into a flashy hybrid quilt-weaving-painting work of art.

The process reveals Cook's wily feminist politics. She flattened and spliced together traditionally feminine domestic techniques with the historically male-dominated modern expressionist painting style, demanding that all forms of art be appreciated.