Opening Reception and Artist Talk with Jas Mardis:
Let The Tablecloth Speak: The Embedded DNA Storytelling in Heirloom Linens
June 8, 6 p.m.

Exhibition Dates: June 8 - July 6

Your tablecloth has everybody's DNA... heard all the stories, hopes, fears, lies, prayers, and secrets... cigarette burns, coffee spills, and cooling boards. Explore 13 fabric art quilts from a single heirloom tablecloth telling how a spot at the table remembers the family from where they sat, talked, were missed... are missed. 

Jas Mardis is an award-winning Writer, Radio Commentator, Fabric Artist/Quilter, Storyteller and only Pyrography on Leather Portrait Artist Practitioner working in fabric art and assemblage. Jas is uniquely crafting pyrography/fire drawn portraits on leather and applique to his hand and machine quilted art, assemblage-statues and wood designs. Jas is a 2014 Inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame, 2000 Pushcart Prize Winner, multiple Association of Black Journalist — GRIOT Awards winner, and Voertman Poetry Award winner, and he was the Editor of “KenteCloth: Southwest Writers of the African Diaspora” (UNT Press). 

This exhibition will be on display in the Art Gallery from June 8 through July 6, 2024. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. and evenings when there are other public programs scheduled in the building. The Grand Gallery is closed on Sundays and Mondays. The Grand will also be closed on Wednesday, June 19, and Thursday, July 4. 

Family Table Photo Wall: Visitors to the exhibition are invited to bring a printed photograph of their family at the table to post on a special wall in the gallery. Please note that any photo contributions to the wall cannot be returned.