Page 11 - The Magazine of AAA Ohio Auto Club – November 2020

Get your weekend game plan in gear with these upcoming Ohio events.
Nov. 21, 2020 – Feb. 14, 2021
“Radical Tradition: American Quilts and
Social Change”
Toledo Museum of Art 800-644-6862 • toledomuseum.org
American quilts have long been connected with notions of tradition, with patterns and techniques passed down for generations in communities throughout the country. As nostalgic symbols of the American past, quilts have been viewed as antidotes to upheaval during times of change. Disrupting our expectations of quilts
as objects that provide warmth and comfort, “Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change” will explore the complicated and often overlooked stories quilts tell about the American experience, offering new perspectives on themes including wartime support and protest, civil rights, gender equality, queer aesthetics and relationships with the land and the environment.
Featuring more than 30 quilts and textile-based works that reflect historical and cultural diversity, along with a virtual quilting-bee project for participants around the country, the exhibition will consider how quilts have been used to voice opinions, raise awareness and enact social reform from the mid-19th century to the present.
“In the context of the coronavirus pandemic and our country’s current reckoning with racial injustice, Radical Tradition takes on a particular urgency and relevance,” said Lauren Applebaum, Ph.D., associate curator of American art at TMA and curator of the exhibition. “Quilts have always engaged the pressing social and political issues of their time. They have been deployed throughout history by marginalized people to confront instances of violence, oppression and exclusion. Today, they are a vital resource and medium for exploring some of the crises of our history as told through the eyes of women, LGBTQ individuals, people of color and the communities that formed around important social issues of the last two centuries.”
A highlight of the exhibition is acclaimed contemporary artist Bisa Butler’s 2020 work “The Storm, the Whirlwind and the Earthquake,” a tour-de-force composition made entirely of quilted and appliqued cotton, silk, wool and velvet, depicting 19th-century abolitionist and social reformer Frederick Douglass at full-length human scale against a vibrant patterned background. The artwork’s title references his famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” delivered on July 5, 1852, in which Douglass admonished the celebration of freedom during a time of slavery.
Nov. 27-29, Dec. 4-6, Dec. 11-13
Drive-Thru Light Display Medina County Fairgrounds, Medina
Open weeknights 6-9 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays 6-10 p.m. Cost is $10 per car and $20 for vans and small buses.
Connect: Public Art
& Wellness Challenge
As part of its ongoing Art & Wellness initiative, Dublin Arts Council launched the Connect:
Public Art & Wellness Challenge on Sept. 26, connecting the community to the environment, public art and personal and community well-being.
Ohio artists will create new artworks that respond to each of Dublin’s 16 Riverboxes – small-scale public artworks inspired by the hobbies of geocaching and letterboxing that can be found in nine Dublin parks. Artwork installation began the week of Sept. 14. The artwork will be on view through the end of the year.
A challenge booklet serves as a guide and interactive journal with geographic clues for a self-guided public art tour. The booklet also contains prompts for wellness and creative engagement by three additional artists. A message for the community from Leatherlips’ sculptor Ralph Helmick on the occasion of the public artwork’s 30th anniversary is included, along with resources from community partners. In all, 20 artists and nine community partners are involved in the project.
Booklets are available throughout the community via “ARTboxes,” inspired by the “little libraries” concept. Challenge booklets also are available for download at dublinarts.org/featured-items/connect.
To learn more about participating artists, find a map to the ARTboxes locations and more, visit dublinarts.org/featured-items/connect.
For more information about any of Dublin Arts Council’s programs, exhibitions and events, call 614-889-7444 or visit www.dublinarts.org.
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