Current Exhibitions
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​Stitched: Contemporary Quilt Art from the International Quilt Festival Collection
Main Gallery
​February 1 – August 29, 2020
For more than three decades, Karey Bresenhan and Nancy O’Bryant Puentes, founders of Quilts, Inc., have been purchasing studio art quilts for their corporate collection, mostly from exhibitions at the Houston International Quilt Festival. Started by Bresenhan in 1974, and produced by Quilts, Inc., the annual Houston International Quilt Festival quickly became an international destination for quilters.

For the first time ever, part of this collection has been assembled into a nationally-touring exhibition. Dr. Sandra Sider, Curator for the Texas Quilt Museum, selected the quilts in the exhibition, which date from 1986-2010.  

The artists range from several of the most famous names in contemporary quilt art to emerging artists at the time of purchase whose innovative work caught the collectors’ attention. Themes and styles in this exhibition include narration, color abstraction, landscapes, the cosmos, and homage to antique quilts.

Image:
Joan Frantz, "Square Root Cubed", 2006, 51" x 51"
Courtesy of the International Quilt Festival Collection
Lesley Humphrey: Saved By a Horse
Rebecca Cole Gallery
February 1 – August 29, 2020
What if a single image could represent one’s emotional landscape, including such feelings as happiness, freedom, trust, grief, strength and resilience? What if a person could soothe their spirit, calm down, and find the strength and purpose to overcome the often-dreadful aspects of life? Artist Lesley Humphrey found the answer to these questions in painting the horse.
 
In Saved By a Horse, Humphrey provides viewers with an intimate lens through which to see how horse imagery became embossed upon – and healed – a psyche.
Lesley Humphrey:
 
When I was 4, I would ride a great old rocking horse, and the outside world would disappear, replaced by an imaginative gladness I cannot describe. In later years, I realized how this horse, this image, reconnected me to that free, powerful and vibrant state, and all I had to do was draw or paint the horse, and the ordinary world would simply “go away.” Relief at last!
Through painting or drawing the horse for over 58 years, Humphrey believes she has reconnected to her spirit that was lost in early childhood. She states that her artistic process has healed her, taught her, and in fact, led her toward maturity and apparent worldwide success along the way.
 
Through all the horse imagery in Saved By A Horse, Lesley hopes people will remember and feel their own spirit as they join hers in the exhibition.  She hopes viewers will understand how the artistic process can help one overcome some of life’s difficult challenges common to us all: illness, loss, addiction, injustice – everyday roadblocksto happiness.  For her, all these challenges were overcome via the artistic process, reconnection to one’s spirit, and the horse. 
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Images:
Lesley Humphrey, The Derby Beat (detail), 2010,  oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in.
Lesley Humphrey, Melting, 2016, oil on panel, 24 x 24 in.