ART READS WITH DAI
ART READS WITH DAI
Dig Deeper with Art Reads
Dayton Metro Library and Dayton Art Institute, opens a new window are excited to deepen our ongoing partnership! In order to celebrate Dayton Art Institute's special exhibitions, opens a new window, DML Librarians have created related booklists. We hope that these booklists will help patrons extend their DAI experience with further reading of recommended DML materials.
Checkout a DAI Pass
Check out a Family Pass to the Dayton Art Institute from your Dayton Metro Library.
Each membership admits up to 2 adults and up to 4 children to the DAI – including access to the collection galleries and all museum exhibitions. Memberships may be checked out for up to three weeks. They can be reserved in person or online, and they are not renewable.
DAI Special Exhibition
Spider Web Quilt
Artist unidentified (American) - 1920s, Cotton, 73 x 65 in., Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York. Gift of Karen and Werner Gundersheimer, 2018.2.14. Photo by Gavin Ashworth
Wall Power! Spectacular Quilts from the American Folk Art Museum
October 17, 2026 - January 10, 2027, Gallery 120
Quilts are America’s great art experiment: monumental compositions in color, pattern, geometry, and representation, and traditionally, quilts are made mostly by women. The American Folk Art Museum has been at the forefront of the movement to bring recognition to quilts as a major art form with deep roots in American life and experience. Their collection is distinctive for highly individualized expressions in this medium that is both yielding and unforgiving, challenging the maker to test the limits imposed by cutting and piecing bits of fabric.
The quilts presented in this traveling exhibition are graphically striking examples that embody a sense of “wall power.” Packing a tough visual punch, the textiles hold space and defy the deceptive softness of their nature. Quilts on view range across time and place from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, from Alabama to Pennsylvania. The four sections of the exhibition highlight early twentieth-century quilts from a period of craft revival, designs developed by Amish communities, examples by African American makers, and traditional nineteenth-century patterns that formed a foundation for generations of quiltmakers to come.
In addition, a selection of American quilts from the DAI’s extensive textile collection will be presented to complement Wall Power!
Recommended Reading
Art Reads with DAI: Wall Power! Spectacular Quilts
DAI Special Exhibition
Panel 2624
Panel 2624; mixed media. On loan from National AIDS Memorial Inc., California. Photographer unknown, AIDS Memorial Quilt on display at the National Mall, Washington, D.C.,1996
Power of Remembrance: AIDS Memorial Quilt Panels
October 17, 2026 - January 3, 2027, Gallery 201
The AIDS Memorial Quilt is a labor of love begun by volunteers.
Quilting has long been a communal activity, bringing people together to create something useful, passing down stories and traditions from one generation to another. The AIDS Memorial Quilt was first imaged by Human rights activist Cleve Jones in 1985 from his desire to remember those who had died from AIDS-related illnesses. Jones, with Mike Smith, founded the NAMES Project, turning their grief and anger into action.
Initially working with a small group of volunteers out of their headquarters in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, they stitched together 3x6 panels onto 12 ft square Quilt blocks. Jones stated, "The workshop was magical and at the same time devastating...There wasn't a day that I didn't cry, but the miracle of it was that over the sound of the sewing machines you'd hear laughter."
The first large-scale display was on the National Mall, Washington, DC, on October 11, 1987, revealing 1,920 panels, each recognizing multiple individuals. The following year, the Quilt has grown to 8,288 panels. The last showing of the entire Quilt was in 1996, with more than 41,000 panels covering thirty acres. While medical advances have helped slow the effects of the AIDS virus for individuals, there still is no cure and the National AIDS Memorial continues to receive new panels daily, which are shown in numerous displays each year.