Museums
Museum Exhibitions Curated by Kate Stern
FABULOUS FIBER
Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, California
In 2025, Kate curated Fabulous Fiber for the Oceanside Museum of Art, in Oceanside, California. This exhibition brings together artists working with various materials which all fall under the banner of Fiber Arts. Whether woven, quilted, tufted, embroidered, beaded or felted, the works of art vary from 3 dimensional sculptures to both expansive and small wall works to wearable art. Oozing with texture and color, these age-old techniques give way to a new life as contemporary artworks.
Note from the curator:
“I have long held a strong visceral attraction to textile and fiber art partially because I love the textures but also because the work makes me feel involved with it. Almost like I am a part of it. Something about knowing the feeling of the fibers on their own and how those feelings relate to my own emotions. Fiber art has a way to make you feel connected to the work on a sensory level”.
Artists include: Adriene Hughes, Bonita Johnson, Elise Vazelakis, Gwen Samuels, Hammad Abid, Isa Guadalupe, Jill Hagata, Jillian Moss, Linda Gass, Liv Aanrud, Marianna Baker, Mary Little, Michelle Kingdom, Monica Loss, Nancy Larrew, Peg Grady, Serena Brooks, Shelby Drabman, Stephanie Metz, Susan Davis, Susan Maddux
Click here to see what The San Diego Union-Tribune had to say about the exhibition. Downloadable PDF
Isa Guadalupe: Beaded Headdress
View more images of Fabulous Fiber on the museum’s website.
MELISSA MEIER / BECOMING NATURE
Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, California
Melissa Meier’s solo exhibition, BECOMING NATURE, opened on March 11, 2023 at the Oceanside Museum of Art in Oceanside, CA and was on view through June 25, 2023.
What comes from the earth shall return to the earth if all is as it should be. Melissa Meier’s organic wearable sculptures are deeply personal and inspirational. They celebrate and orchestrate nature to a fashion that speaks boldly to the feminine power that is mother nature and to who we are at our optimal selves -fragility and boldness existing together. There is also a great element of fantasy and surrealism, an area that our minds can dare to explore and that Melissa executes with supreme creativity and craftsmanship. She is an artist whose sculptures and photographs walk the line between other-worldliness and the world we exist in. The glorification of these natural materials outside of their normal existence is to me nothing short of breathtaking.
View more images of Fabulous Fiber on the museum’s website.
DRESS REHEARSAL
Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, California
Kate’s Stern’s group exhibition, DRESS REHEARSAL, opened on July 27, 2019 at the Oceanside Museum of Art in Oceanside, CA. and was on view through January, 2020.
The title, DRESS REHEARSAL, is a play-on-words. In this exhibition the dress is the main character, both object as well as subject. These California artists have pushed boundaries in their interpretation of the dress as an object as well as subject and explore issues of identity, form, repression, freedom and celebration. And just as theater distorts reality and heightens our experiences, so do these artists in their novel vision, construction, and choice of materials. And while many of the artworks do have a theatrical flair, others present literal interpretations of how we choose to cover or reveal ourselves. The interpretations are far from traditional – moving more into the realms of the abstract, surreal, ethereal, and whimsical.
Artists include: Alexandra Dillon, Carolyn Hampton, Cheryl Simon Ekstrom, Dosshaus, Gwen Samuels, Janet Taylor Pickett, Kenton Nelson, Leigh Salgado, Marina Debris, Mary Tuma, Melissa Meier and Michaek Kalish
Melissa Meier , Sea sponge dress construction, 2019.
Exhibition Press:
Mary Tuma, deconstructed Red dresses & Dosshaus installation
Backstage dressing room by Dosshaus. Photo by David Connally of Dosshaus. Artwork courtesy of Corey Helford.
Alexandra Dillon, 0il paint on vintage dresses
Gwen Samuels- hand stitched photo transparencies
Gwen Samuels, family photos and teabags handstitched & Michaal Kalish, 3 dimentional alluminum Geisha
Melisa Meier, Sea Sponge dress, Carolyn Hampton, white dress photo series and Alexandra Dillon, “Two Mother”s installation.
Kenton Nelson , oil on canvas
Cheryl Simon Ekstrom, “Misplaced Heart With A Wolf At Her Back”, Bronze.
Marina Debris. TRASHION series. Dresses all made from trash found along the California coastline
Janet Taylor Pickett, Mixed Media paintings
Carolyn Hampton, Girl in white dress series
Kenton Nelson, “Mending” Italian glass tile mosaic.
Leigh Salgado, Cut paper dresses
Alexandra Dillon, “Two Mothers” chairs, oil on vintage dresses, shovel and silver tray.
View more images of Dress Rehearsal on the museum’s website.
FROSTIG AT LARGE, The Artists of the Frostig Collection.
MOAH (Museum of Art and History), Lancaster, CA
In the fall of 2013 Kate Stern curated a large exhibition for the Museum of Art and History (MOAH) in Lancaster, CA entitled FROSTIG AT LARGE, The Artists of the Frostig Collection. The show, which was spread over two floors of the museum, consisted of all 24 works from the Frostig Collection itself, shown alongside large scale artworks by many of the renowned artists who make up the collection. The exhibit featured additional works by: Robert Graham, Charles Arnoldi, Ed Moses, Lita Albuquerque, Ray Turner, Kenton Nelson, Brad Howe, Michael C. McMillen, Larry Bell, Sarah Perry, Gwynn Murrill, Gary Baseman, David Buckingham, Michael Kalish and Guy Dill.
David Buckingham’s Pretty Boy outside of MOAH
Upstairs Gallery View at MOAH*
Lita Albuquerque at MOAH*
Downstairs gallery view at MOAH *
Guy Dill at MOAH *
Upstairs gallery at MOAH*
Brad Howe in front of his installation at MOAH *
Kate Stern and Kenton Nelson alongside his painting at MOAH*
*All photos above by Eric Minh Swenson
SHOW&TELL
Zimmer Children’s Museum, Los Angeles, California
Beginning in 2003 and over the course of five years, Stern curated four large group exhibitions which included seventy five artists per show for the Zimmer Children’s Museum in Los Angeles. Objects such as musical instruments, telephones, clocks and cameras were turned into works of art by well-known and emerging artists. The exhibits, entitled Show&Tell; the art of connection, time, harmony & vision respectively also included works by social activists, tying in with the museum’s youTHink program which uses the power of art to foster critical thinking, engage diverse learners, promote literacy and serve as a tool for social change.
Stern also acted as creative director for the beautiful catalogs that accompanied each exhibit.
Artists included: Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Graham, Charles Arnoldi, David Hockney, George Hermes, Billy Al Bengston, Gary Baseman, Brad Howe, Raymond Pettibone, Ramona Otto, Alexis Rockman, Andy Moses, Michael Kalish, Daryl Pottorf and Alison Saar.
Kumi Korf for Show&Tell; the art of harmony, 2007
Liz Marx for Show&Tell; the art of connection, 2004
Robert Graham for Show&Tell; the art of time, 2006
Charles Arnoldi for Show&Tell; the art of connection, 2004