Connie, controversy, censorship

BY JOHN OLESKY (BJ 1969-96)

The controversy over Connie Bloom’s review of renegade quilt artist legend Nancy Crow’s exhibit in Columbus in issue No. 1 of QSDS Voice is a major topic in issue No. 2 of the quarterly online magazine.

So much so that former Beacon Journal staffer Connie’s web site, which had 4,000 hits before the initial issue came out, is nearing a quarter-million visits three months later.

Letters to publisher/editor Connie Bloom's QSDS (as in Quilt Service Design Symposium) range from Connie’s critique being an “attack” to attagirls. The letters are from such far-flung places as South Carolina, Maryland, Toronto, Arizona, Wisconsin, Illinois, California and Cleveland.

Issue No. 2 also deals with censorship.

Deborah Fell’s “Enthesopathy” art quilt was displayed in 2002 at the United Nations Building in New York City. The exhibit’s theme was showing how pain affected people. Deborah was, well, Exhibit A. She was dealing with enthesopathy, an arthritic condition affecting the tendons and ligaments.

Carle Clinic in Urbana, Illinois purchased the art quilt and hung it in the Orthopedic Department lobby area for several years. Then one person complained that the work was pornographic. It was taken down.

After several years, the departments in the clinic and hospital moved and "Enthesopathy: Weaving a Web of Pain" hangs in
its new location.

Connie will be going on the QSDS Arts Tour of Mexico October 23-Nov. 2, 2010 in Mexico City and about a dozen other cities and villages.

The next QSDS symposium will be June 1-11 in the Ramada Plaza Hotel and Conference Center in Columbus.

Connie, once my co-worker in the BJ Features Department, took a Beacon buyout in 2008 and plunged full-time into fabric art, after a few years of notable dabbling. She has a working studio at 111 N. Main Street in Akron, Red Light Galleries (a former bordello), next door to Luigi’s. Call ahead at (330) 472-0161 if you want to meet Connie, who married Bob Shields in 2008 after 10 years of togetherness.

Click on the headline to judge for yourself whether “Enthesopathy” is pornography. You’ll also see other QSDS Voice photos, work by Connie and the Features Department faux beach party while the boss was away from two decades ago.