2019 | SEPTEMBER
Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery Exhibit
Domestic Space
Through January 3, 2020
Fred Rogers Center
Free | www.saintvincentarts.org
What does home mean? Throughout history, humans have grappled with the notion of home. Home can be the place where we belong, a base that allows us to build our lives. Homes can also be a burden, becoming centers of debt and structures in constant need of repair and upkeeps. Despite the joys and burden of home, the domestic itself emerges as a place where we can read the lives of people from the past through the decoration, design, and contents of the historic homes. Just as they do today, objects defined the lives of people in the past and by looking at the home and the items people chose to surround themselves with, we can attempt to reconstruct a cultural moment where domestic space emerged as a refuge and private place as well as a space where people of the past attempted to forge an identity for themselves. Explore the concepts of home and domesticity with our stunning coverlet collection alongside nearly eighty artifacts on loan from The Linden Tree Antiques in Harmony, Pennsylvania.
UPCOMING
2020 | JANUARY
Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery
Technological Textiles:
Computing History and Decorative Textiles
5-7 p.m. Thursday, January 17, opening reception
January 17, 2020 to June 12, 2020
Fred Rogers Center
Free | www.saintvincentarts.org
Generative art, or art created with coding as a central characteristic, emerges as the focus of the McCarl Coverlet Gallery’s spring exhibit which focuses on computing technology in the early textile industry. The coverlets emerge as early examples of generative art using an autonomous system, or using an external system to which the artist gives partial or total control. An important highlight in the history of generative art is the invention of the Jacquard loom in 1801. The handloom itself featured a weaving attachment that introduced the concept of a stored “computer-like” program in the form of punched-cards. These automated cards allowed weavers to produce and replicate complex patterns in textiles quickly and efficiently. Jacquard’s invention revolutionized the weaving industry and punch-card technology paved the way for the invention of both the computer and later forms of generative and algorithmic art.
2020 | JUNE & JULY
Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery exhibit
Remember the Ladies: A Celebration of 100
Years of Women’s Suffrage
June 24, 2020 to January 8, 2021
Fred Rogers Center
Free | www.saintvincentarts.org
Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment with a special exhibit that explores the long history of women’s struggle to achieve the vote in the United States. While 1848 emerges as a pivotal moment in written history with the prominent Seneca Falls Convention in New York, women struggled for access to the vote long before 1848. This exhibit explores themes of the meaning of democracy and freedom to women across class and racial lines. It will highlight the ongoing struggle for equality from the founding of the nation through the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 through colorful textiles, artifacts, and documents.