Due to the scale of the exhibition--it features 100 quilts pieced together from traditional Japanese fabrics--it will be shown in two segments: Feb. 2-20 and Feb. 23-March 13.

A special reception, open to the public, for artists and exhibition organizers is planned for Friday, Feb. 6. Juliann Wolfgram, a specialist in Asian art, will present a lecture on the exhibition on Monday, Feb. 9, in the Galleries.

Organized by the Asian Art Coordinating Council in Denver, Colo., in conjunction with Kokusai Art and the Japan Handicrafts Instructor's Association of Tokyo, Japan, the exhibitionÑwhich has toured in Japan, Australia and the Netherlands and will visit other U.S. citiesÑfeatures quilts by 100 women.

"Each quilter was required to include traditional textiles produced in Japan, and considered part of our cultural history," said Instructor's Association chairman Tadanobu Seto.

Constructed from hand dyed and woven fabrics, including richly textured or more delicate cloths from kimonos, obis and bedding, the works represent a new wave of quilt making in Japan, sparked by the recent introduction in Japan of the American tradition of patchwork quilts.

"Japanese women have a very long history of hand and needle art, not just as garment makers, but as object makers," said CSUN art professor and textiles expert Bernice Colman. Embroidered cushions, bags, dolls and other small objects are part of a well-established needlework tradition.

"When the quilt craze hit Japan about 25 years ago," Colman said, "the women saw it as an outlet for creative expression that goes beyond the little dolls and other objects."

Already familiar with the more utilitarian Japanese custom of fashioning saved materials for bedding, the contemporary quilt makers brought highly developed skills and an advanced sensitivity to color and composition to their works, noted Colman, who stressed that in Japan the quilts enjoy an elevated status solidly within the country's art tradition.

Colman pointed out that the exercise of patchwork quilting in itself is not new to Japan, whose futons reveal the frequent practical use of patchwork. "The new Japanese quilts, however, combine the Japanese stylistic tradition with the Western pictorial tradition," she explained.

The works range from a joyful scarlet silk on cream creation called "Celebration" to the brooding deep dyed cotton indigos of "Mt. Fuji in Late Summer," from free form to geometric to narrative, such as the depiction of climbers ascending Mt. Fuji. Throughout, the artists' themes and images reflect their closeness to the natural world; dogwood, peach and apple blossoms, cranes, the elements, ribbons of rivers and moonlight find expression.

Though introspective in mood and executed by individuals rather than in the more social American quilting party, Art Galleries Director Louise Lewis sees the works as products of a "metaphoric quilting bee." The sense of community is present, she said, in the artists' collective desire to bring their ancestors into their work and to emphasize the symbols of their culture.

"We are delighted to be able to do this exhibition in the spring, coming out of a dark winter and in an uneasy time in the world," Lewis said. "The joy in even the most simple of these quilts gives one a sense of community, their connective threads binding us together."