Cloth is how a lot of families keep their stories, and seven artists are treating it that way. The Let’s begin in the middle exhibition opens October 23 at InLiquid Gallery and follows memory, grief and inheritance through buttons, crochet, embroidery, quilts and found materials.

InLiquid presents the show in Crane Arts, Gallery 108, at 1400 N American Street. The Let’s begin in the middle exhibition runs through November 28, Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 6 p.m., with an opening reception on Thursday, November 12, from 6 to 9 p.m.

The through-line is the overlap of personal memory and cultural inheritance. InLiquid describes the show as blurring the boundary between individual and collective experience, and the artists get there by different roads, some through ancestral technique and some through whatever was left over and found.

The Let’s begin in the middle exhibition treats craft as a way to preserve history and give memory a physical form. Seven artists means seven different ways in, and none of them asks you to start at the beginning.

Let’s begin in the middle Exhibition Artists

The Let’s begin in the middle exhibition leads with Beau McCall, known as the Button Man. McCall hand-sews secondhand and donated buttons onto upcycled fabric, work rooted in the Black cultural tradition of “making something out of nothing.” Upcycled denim carries the history of the cotton and indigo workers who were once enslaved and builds new narratives about McCall’s community today.

Rebecca Kelly forages bark, flowers and nuts for natural dyes and embroiders florals on bundle-dyed silk, honoring the Moravian dye tradition in Pennsylvania. Kelly treats the work as a memoir. Julie Woodard is a self-described “doula of discarded things,” and Woodard’s salvaged textiles, found objects and family heirlooms pay tribute to a late mother.

Caitlin McCormack crochets cotton thread, then stiffens it with glue and foraged pigments until soft forms hold rigid shapes. Each figure looks solid while seeming to unravel, the way a memory does. Bren Ahearn uses the embroidery sampler to document memories and the way masculinity gets taught.

Amy Orr’s four Twist Tie Quilts, made between 2004 and 2006, turn ordinary, overlooked and discarded materials into thousands of small stitched and arranged gestures. Impaired vision, family rituals and Hurricane Katrina run through the series.

Barbara Schulman’s large-format quilts start from vintage lace, family textiles and digitally printed cloth, then dye, paint and stitching carry the work toward real or imagined memories. Side by side, the seven artists in the Let’s begin in the middle exhibition read like a shared archive of what cloth can hold.

^{Clockwise from top left: Amy Orr, Barbara Schulman, Rebecca Kelly, Beau McCall, Bren Ahearn, Julie Woodard, Caitlin McCormack.}

The Let’s begin in the middle Exhibition is Part of CraftMONTH

InLiquid presents the show in conjunction with CraftNOW’s CraftMONTH, the citywide craft program that CraftNOW holds in November, with exhibitions across the city in wood, clay, fiber, metal and glass. The city has reason to lean into craft this year. This summer, Etsy and the Center for Craft named Philadelphia a Craft Hub, and five area organizations, InLiquid among them, received $100,000 each, $500,000 in all, through the Craft Catalyst Initiative.

The funding is the backdrop, and the work on the walls carries the show. Textiles have been a steady thread at InLiquid Gallery this year, from Future Past Present and its quilted portraits to New Now IX, the largest group of new members in the gallery’s history. Across town in Germantown, Memory Made Visible at City Arts Salon pairs quilted historical work with AI and VR.

Go any Wednesday through Saturday between noon and 6 p.m., from October 23 to November 28, to InLiquid Gallery at 1400 N American Street. InLiquid encourages an RSVP for the November 12 reception, from 6 to 9 p.m.

Bring someone who remembers where the family quilt came from. The Let’s begin in the middle exhibition starts from the cloth that outlasts the hands that made it, and seven artists show what that cloth is still holding.

About Post Author

Allan Lane

Philadelphia born and bred, Allan Lane is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of digital magazines. He launched his first publication, SportBikes Inc Magazine in 2010, followed by dosage MAGAZINE in 2019. Recently, Allan launched his third online publication, Club For Man. As a journalist, Allan covers fashion, lifestyle, culture, art, and motorcycles.

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