'Narrative Quilt' Exhibit Set for Art Upstairs Gallery

Does art ever leave you cold? Then maybe you'll want to warm up with the narrative quilts of Margaret Beach and her exhibit, "Stories Told and Retold," being displayed at The Art Upstairs Gallery at the Mayo Performing Arts Center from Jan. 17 through March 6. The opening reception, free to the public, is set for 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 22.

The press release is below:

The Art Upstairs Gallery at the presents the work of Margaret Beach in "Stories Told and Retold", an exhibit of narrative quilts from Jan. 17, 2012 through March 6, 2012. The reception is free and open to the public.

Margaret Beach's narrative quilt carries on a unique American tradition of quilt making by women but with a new contemporary, personal touch. Margaret is self-taught and thus brings a fresh, uninhibited approach to her artistic voice. In the past, quilts were a communal effort created by women using available fabrics and classic design patterns. But Beach takes this endeavor onto a higher artistic and creative plane.  Her quilts are visual icons to genre paintings, works that tell a story or depict scenes of everyday activities. Her roots are literary and draw on memorable authors like Henry David Thoreau, Shakespeare and James Thurber, incorporating their inspirational words into her "canvasses".

Beach's artistry is distinguished by a strong eye for color and pattern. She uses vivid and bold colors on her palette and with intricate, original designs to enhance her subject matter with her stories and messages. She is truly a tour de force in her artistic oeuvre, combining the old with the new, the present with the past and a universal vision to pass on to future generations. But whether telling a personal chapter in her life or depicting an historical event, her subject is always the human condition in all its joys and sorrows, humor and pathos of men and women and children of all ages, races, religions and nationalities.

The Art Upstairs Gallery is a generous gift from the John and Margaret Post Foundation. The Gallery is open two hours prior to and during all performances at the Theatre, and by appointment by calling 973-539-0345, Ext. 6583.

Located in the upper lobby of the Theatre, the Art Upstairs Gallery presents an ongoing series of exhibits featuring established and emerging artists from New Jersey. Art shows run every four to six weeks and offer increased opportunities for New Jersey visual artists to exhibit, and for the Theatre's core constituency of arts-minded patrons and the general public to be exposed to visual arts.