Women of Taste -- Exhibitions -- Oakland Museum of California

March 4 through July 23, 2000
Women of Taste: A Collaboration Celebrating Quilt Artists and Chefs
Presented by the History Department

Susan Shie (artist) & Monique Théorêt (chef), Treacle Soup

The creations of quilt artists inspired by chefs will be on view in the exhibition Women of Taste: A Collaboration Celebrating Quilt Artists and Chefs, at the Oakland Museum of California from March 4 to July 23, 2000. From modern abstraction to pictorial to traditional, the 50 quilts in the exhibition display a full range of artistic responses to a subject dear to all of our hearts (and stomachs).

Cooking and sewing, once dismissed as "women's work," are celebrated as a means of women's empowerment in this exhibition organized by Girls Incorporated of Alameda County and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). Girls Incorporated works "to ensure that girls have the opportunity to grow up strong, smart, and bold." The exhibition will tour as two separate exhibitions of 25 quilts, but all 50 quilts will be on display at the Oakland Museum of California.

Nancy Taylor (artist) & Wendy Brucker (chef), Quartet

The project paired a group of the country's most accomplished quilt artists with renowned women chefs to design quilts reflecting their mutual explorations of food and creativity. Each chef - quilter pair discussed creativity, aesthetics, careers, food and food-related issues such as the environment, agriculture and health. The essence of these dialogues was incorporated into 50 unique quilts relating directly or indirectly to the preparation, offering and celebration of food. The quilters talked and corresponded with the chefs, ate in their restaurants, made dishes from their cookbooks, and worked together with them in creating designs that expressed something about the chefs and their shared values and interests.

Chef Julia Child, who also wrote the foreword to the exhibition catalog, suggested a "jolly" quilt full of color to partner Yvonne Porcella, who designed a bright red quilt based on the theme of salade niçoise. Sarah Leverett and Patricia Curtan created "Alice's Garden," an elegant, simple quilt of hand-dyed fabric in rich earth colors with block-printed images of fruits and vegetables to reflect their friend Alice Waters, internationally renowned founder of Berkeley, California's Chez Panisse restaurant. Another Berkeley landmark, Bette's Oceanview Diner, is depicted by Oakland quilt artist Alice Beasley in a scene of a man and woman eating, with restaurant owner Bette Kroening bringing food to the table. Chef Alice Brock, made famous by the Arlo Guthrie song "Alice's Restaurant," is now an illustrator of children's books, so she actively participated with fiber artist Natasha Kempers-Cullen in the creation of the playful quilt "Collage Soup."

Velda Newman (artist) & Elizabeth Terry (chef),
Catch of the day

The quilts represent a variety of surface design techniques from piecing and appliqué to embroidery and painting, and of course quilting. Excerpts from the journals and correspondence between the chefs and quilters provide another means to interpret the work itself, the collaborative process and the relationship between quilting, cooking and being a woman in our society.

Twenty-two of the quilters are from California, including such acclaimed quilt artists as Therese May, Deanna Davis, Velda Newman and Joan Schulze. Twenty-two famous California chefs are represented in the exhibition, including Alice Waters and her disciples Joyce Goldstein and Nancy Silverton, as well as Wendy Brucker, Maggie Blyth Klein, Bette Kroening and Frances Wilson.

Ed Johnetta Miller(artist) & Sherrie Maurer (chef),
Lighting the Flame

Girls Incorporated is the descendent of the girls clubs that originated in 1864 to meet the needs of young women who came from rural communities to the cities of New England in search of jobs in the textile mills and factories established during the Industrial Revolution. Girls Incorporated of Alameda County, which organized the exhibition, sponsors an annual Women of Taste fundraising event at the Oakland Museum of California to support the group's work in creating lasting change in the community and in girls' lives.

Project organizers for the exhibition are Girls Inc. program developer Lynn Richards and board member Karen Wehrman. The exhibition and associated programs are presented under the supervision of Inez Brooks-Myers, Curator of Costume and Textiles at the Oakland Museum of California.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 112-page fully illustrated publication edited by Jen Bilik in association with Girls Incorporated and published by C&T Publishing of Lafayette, California (1999).

Lynn Richards (artist) & Karen Wehrman(chef),
The Seeds Were Sown Early

Public programs accompanying the exhibition will include gallery talks; slide lectures; Samplings 2000, a one-day festival of textiles and cuisine; workshops and family days with activities for visitors of all ages.

Women of Taste: A Collaboration Celebrating Quilt Artists and Chefs is generously funded by the Oakland Museum Women's Board; P & B Textiles; East Bay Heritage Quilters and Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association.
Media sponsor:

Also on exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California through July 23, 2000 is Crazy Quilts:

Quilt with Family Wedding Gowns, 1887 (Detail)
photo credit: Catherine Buchanan

December 15, 1999 to July 23, 2000
Crazy Quilts

Crazy Quilts, an exhibit of 12 breathtaking antique quilts from the museum collection, is on view at the Oakland Museum of California through July 23. Crazy quilts, the decorative quilts that enjoyed great popularity during the late Victorian era, are pieced in nontraditional patterns and decorated with elaborate embroidery, applique work and painting.


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