These traveling exhibitions extend the museum’s reach into other communities, removing barriers to accessibility, creating educational enrichment opportunities and fostering relationships. For the hosting venues, the exhibitions are cost-effective ways to diversify programming, attract new visitors and present professional, thought-provoking work. “Seams to Be: New Approaches to Textile Techniques” is the fourth installment of “Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia,” a series of traveling exhibitions that happens every three years and aims not only to discover and cultivate artists from across the state, but to make their exciting creations accessible to audiences in metropolitan areas big and small. Organized by the Georgia Museum of Art and independent guest curator Didi Dunphy, “Seams to Be” will travel to six different venues in Georgia beginning this fall. “Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia” was initiated over a decade ago when Dunphy and William U. Eiland, the museum’s then-director, called a consortium for Georgia’s museum and gallery directors to meet and discuss sharing resources, exhibitions, collection sharing and other efforts to elevate the arts. At the time, Dunphy was the program supervisor of the Lyndon House Arts Center in Athens as well as an interim curator at the Albany Museum of Art. She knew firsthand that many well-equipped community art centers and non-collecting organizations would likely embrace the opportunity to host a contemporary art show. Each iteration of “Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia” focuses on Georgia artists working with a specific material or technique while inviting diverse subject matter, authentic perspectives and innovative approaches. The pilot exhibition “Pushing the Press: Printmaking in the South” (2016) was based on multiples and printmaking. “Cut and Paste: Works of Paper” (2019) tested the boundaries of a delicate medium, and “Picture This” (2022) featured artists experimenting in narrative painting. “I would say the common ‘thread’ for the artists in ‘Seams To Be’ is a needle and thread,” says Dunphy. “So, the basic connection is the labor of handwork. This is interesting to me as it challenges some traditions of craft by throwing sewing into the discourse of high fine visual art. The scale is really varied from minute beadwork to larger dying of fabric, quilting to weaving, rug hooking and broom-making. So, really, the connection is the nature of the studio practice, a manual labor with an attention to endurance and handwork detailing.” “Seams to Be” features work by 13 artists, five of whom have, or are pursuing, a master of fine arts degree from UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art: Adah Bennion (’26), Beyond curating its own in-house exhibitions and hosting temporary exhibitions from around the globe, the Georgia Museum of Art also organizes exhibitions that travel to other museums and galleries.
Adah Bennion, untitled, 2024. Plantain chip bag and glass beads, 12 × 7 × 1 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Eliza Bentz (’25), Jasmine Best (’25), Jaime Bull (’13) and Victoria Dugger (’22). The exhibition also includes Trish Andersen, of Savannah; Kate Burke, Sonya Yong James, Kelly Taylor Mitchell, Honey Pierre and Jamele Wright Sr., of Atlanta; Cathy Fussell, of Columbus; and Annie Greene, of LaGrange. From Bennion’s meticulously beaded chip bags to Fussell’s “free-motion” quilts inspired by the world around her, each artwork in “Seams to Be” feels imaginative and distinct, reflecting how traditional fiber art techniques can serve as a launch pad for innovation. Greene’s “yarn paintings” use colorful knitting yarns outlined in black thread to depict narrative scenes based on memories of her life as an African American in the rural South. Dugger’s multimedia sculptures use elements of body horror, humor and vibrant excess to test the boundary between beauty and the grotesque. Exploring the Black American vernacular experience, Wright’s fabric assemblage combines Dutch wax cloth and Georgia red clay to create a conversation about family, tradition and spirituality between Africa and the American South. While Dunphy handles the curatorial ins and outs, the museum focuses on the logistics of getting the show on the road. Most significantly, the museum arranges and pays for the exhibition’s greatest expense: the construction, delivery and packing of crates. The museum also covers artist stipends, guest curator fees, in-state dispersal of works back to their artist-lenders and, if needed, commercial storage of the crated exhibition between venues. The museum’s communications department designs and produces a full-color catalogue featuring images, biographies and statements from every artist. These brochures are used as educational material by the participating venues and can function as a promotional tool for artists as their careers grow. “Seams to Be” will open at the Lyndon House Arts Center, where it runs October 2, 2025 – January 24, 2026. The exhibition will then spend nearly two years traveling to the LaGrange Art Museum, the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, the Albany Museum of Art, the Columbus Museum and the Morris Museum of Art.
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