women and art

Miranda July starts her recent Vice photo spread with the following note:

Dear Julie,
Do you ever feel like an extra in your own life? It seems like I'm forever stuck in the background, watching other people say and do all the things I feel inside. One day I'm gonna surprise everyone with my talents. They will be laughing and crying and texting me so often that I will be annoyed.
Until then,
Sandy

More after the jump!

Bitch is lucky enough to get special things in the mail from readers, makers and doers from time-to-time. Recently, one of these packages arrived for me from Kelly Abeln, Editor and Art Director of the publication, 'Cult of Flowers'.

I first saw a selection of the Gee's Bend quilts at The Museum of African Diaspora in San Francisco. I'd never had anything against quilts before that, they just never struck me all that much. I couldn't deny that socially, they can bring women and family together in making and sharing them, but the generally rigid/symmetrical patterns, and often pastel colors and mixed floral prints, didn't grab me. But when I laid eyes on a Gee's Bend quilt for the first time, I was truly moved by not just the story behind it, but moved on a gutteral level by the beauty of the object itself.