Fancy Work is an installation that looks to an exuberant early-nineteenth-century decorative arts movement known as American Fancy to trace an alternate lineage for modernist abstraction and psychedelic light shows. Drawing from patchwork quilts by Rebecca Scattergood Savery and others that were inspired by the 1816 invention of the kaleidoscope, I gathered a group of local makers to create a vibrant, dizzying wall work composed of more than 2,400 screen-printed, cut, and sewn linen diamonds. The design is a variation of the traditional Star of Bethlehem quilt pattern, which Scattergood innovatively took to the edges of her quilts like explosive shockwaves that could not be contained. This monumental quilt top then served as the projection screen for an outsized colonial wall sconce that scatters light from an electrified candle reflected in its faceted mirrors. The sconce is like an inverted disco ball/satellite dish, and it actually spins. Viewers navigated the space with punched tinwork lanterns, creating moving patterns of light and shadow, while an ensemble of tunesmiths played the hauntingly beautiful musical saw to complete this sensory experience.

In order to activate the social space between quilt and sconce, I invited a number of speakers including historian Sumpter Priddy III on American Fancy, media arts scholar Robin Oppenheimer on West Coast light shows of the 1960s and 70s, light show pioneer Bill Ham on light shows as a forgotten folk art form, American quilt historian Roderick Kirakofe on his collection of eccentric improvisational quilts, and activist and NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt founder Cleve Jones on the notion of turning a symbol of American family values on its head: quilt as both healing tool and weapon, battlefield and mass grave.