Woman of the Cloth: Fabric Artist Penny Sisto

People who stereotype quilts as family heirlooms decorated with hearts and flower designs need to think again. Penny Sisto's art quilts focus on painful topics such as the Holocaust, Vietnam, child abuse and female genital mutilation. An abused child herself, Ms. Sisto has transformed her tragic past into thought-provoking quilts that are both striking and haunting. Unfortunately, the wonderful subject matter is lost in bad technical execution. For instance, in one segment as we watch Ms. Sisto working on a quilt while ruminating to herself as she "puts the pieces together," her soft Scottish-accented voice drops to a near whisper (because the producers did not have her wear a body mike) and the viewer must turn up the volume in order to catch every word. Then, when Sisto puts down a pair of scissors, the noise is shattering! This audio balance problem continues throughout the tape, which is truly a shame, since Ms. Sisto's works deserve wider attention--but librarians can be sure that patrons will ceaselessly gripe about the audio quality on this one. Another recent look at both contemporary and tradtional quilting can be found in Unraveling the Stories: Quilts as a Reflection of Our Lives (VL-9/98). (R. Reagan)