A Handful: Textiles

Five things to know about: all the best textile exhibitions, quilts by way of Beirut, and a patchwork bible that takes you on an ethnographic world tour

Welcome to our latest “A Handful,” in which we gather and share five newsy-ish tidbits on our craft radar—announcements, events, inspirations, captivating tangents. In this issue, the throughline is textiles— from handmade quilts made by female refugees to a few exemplary textile-based exhibitions to a big, beautiful patchwork tome that promises to take you on a world tour of traditional textiles. You certainly don’t need to visit each of these cultural highlights in person to enjoy them; we hope they bring you some delight just knowing they exist.

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We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: we are always excited about the ongoing creative happenings radiating from the JB Blunk House—the iconic handbuilt home of late Northern Californian artist JB Blunk. London-based furniture designer Martino Gamper and superstar textile artist Adam Pogue, who has contributed his freeform modernist patchwork to the likes of Commune and Future Perfect, collaborated on the latest exhibition after each spending time in the artist’s home. Known for breezy, grid-like panels and patchwork pillows, Pogue’s modernist-leaning signature aesthetic, pulling from traditional quilting, Korean bojagi and japanese boro techniques, gets a playful, organic Blunk-infused spin with chunky, bulbous chairs; dense fabrics in saturated colors; and abstract shapes. On view now through Dec 3 at Blunk Space.