Nara, Japan
2020
Cotton, silk
hand pieced, appliquéd, and quilted
Gift of the Robert and Ardis James Foundation
IQM 2020.051.0001

This is one of 10 quilts the International Quilt Museum commissioned from 10 of today’s top Japanese quilt artists and teachers, some of whom saw the Holstein/van der Hoof quilts in the 1970s. Each artist selected a piece from the original Abstract Design in American Quilts and responded to it using her own techniques, materials and aesthetic approach.

In this diptych, Yoshiko Katagiri combines her fondness for Log Cabin blocks with her love of appliqué and intricate handwork. She says, “It was challenging to blend together the linear, geometric pattern with the curved, organic shapes of the jellyfish motif.”

She titled the piece “Mother – La Mère (the Sea)” in reference to the fact that the Japanese kanji for “sea” (海) contains the kanji for “mother” (母) and also to how the Holstein/van der Hoof Collection can be seen as the “mother” of Japanese quilt culture.

Click here to view the reference quilt from Abstract Design in American Quilts. It is now showing in Abstract Design in American Quilts at 50.