It's been a very busy week since I dragged myself out of bed at 4:30 AM to catch a bus for the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza XVI (In a contest for titles of quilt shows, that one would certainly not win a prize). And I treated myself this morning to a few quiet moments of looking over the photos I took there.
When we first arrived I started my tour of the quilts and was moving fairly quickly, noting an interesting one here and there but nothing that pulled me in until I happened upon the SAQA exhibit, Layers of Memory, and I found myself standing and staring for a long time at one quilt after another. There is a bit of the maker in any quilt and particularly any quilt that gets juried into a show but some seem to me to so clearly display the mind, heart, skill that created this piece that I just want to spend some time with those quilts, to try to give the meaning, intention, or whatever the maker was trying to put in this piece time to connect with me--and I found several of those in this show.
The theme challenge Bridge produced some amazingly thoughtful and skillful pieces from the Quilt on the Wall group. And the international quilts were a delight. New Zealand nurtures some very talented quilters, and the quilters in South Africa must eat the full spectrum for breakfast every morning. Did I say it was a very good day?
I have become more conscious about posting photos without checking with the artists, and I even looked for some e-mail or blog contact with some makers of my favorite quilts today but could find none. So I must settle for the inadequacy of words.
And, if you are still reading, thanks for the company!
Showing posts with label exhibits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exhibits. Show all posts
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Time to Celebrate
Our travels in Ireland last year took my husband and me to many ancient sites, and I came back with hundreds of images for quilts. One in particular kept rising to the top of my memories--a 5,000-year-old passage tomb on top of one of the Bricklieve Mountains in County Sligo. When Larkin Van Horn described, on the Quiltart e-mail list, a new exhibit she was putting together called Deep Spaces, I knew it was time to make that memory into a quilt and enter it.
Aside from the theme, the only other requirement was the size: 18 x 45 inches, a long narrow quilt, but I wanted to suggest the climb up to the tomb--it was a forty-five minute hike up the mountain; you had to work to get there--and I also wanted to emphasize the sky, one of those memorable Irish skies that you can lose yourself--or find yourself--in. The length gave me the space to include both of those.
So I had a general sketch of where I was going with this piece and my first hands-on decision was how to suggest all those thousands of stones piled by other human hands so long ago. I finally decided on hand applique, which took longer than other methods I considered, but gave the look I wanted. I still had some gray fabric left over from the chickadee quilt, but ended up dyeing another round, as I began to run out of a couple of the gradations. But, aside from the black and white fabrics, I was able to use all my own hand-dyes.
This was one of my major projects during the past year, but finally I put the last of the pearl cotton quilting stitches in, and the photos of "On a Sligo Hill" were ready to send off before the May 1 deadline.
Aside from the theme, the only other requirement was the size: 18 x 45 inches, a long narrow quilt, but I wanted to suggest the climb up to the tomb--it was a forty-five minute hike up the mountain; you had to work to get there--and I also wanted to emphasize the sky, one of those memorable Irish skies that you can lose yourself--or find yourself--in. The length gave me the space to include both of those.
So I had a general sketch of where I was going with this piece and my first hands-on decision was how to suggest all those thousands of stones piled by other human hands so long ago. I finally decided on hand applique, which took longer than other methods I considered, but gave the look I wanted. I still had some gray fabric left over from the chickadee quilt, but ended up dyeing another round, as I began to run out of a couple of the gradations. But, aside from the black and white fabrics, I was able to use all my own hand-dyes.
This was one of my major projects during the past year, but finally I put the last of the pearl cotton quilting stitches in, and the photos of "On a Sligo Hill" were ready to send off before the May 1 deadline.
And so the waiting began. Actually, I was so busy that I didn't have much time to think about it, but left it in the hands of the quilting gods and Larkin and her panel of judges to decide its fate. And finally the news came and it was good. The quilt was accepted!
"On a Sligo Hill" now goes to the state of Washington and will travel over the course of a year to three different venues. A catalog of the full exhibit will be available this fall, and the proceeds will go to a very worthy cause, Doctors Without Borders.
And, if you are still with me, thanks for the company.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
A Rose
The magic and beauty of "Infinite Variety," that magnificent exhibit of 651 red-and-white quilts that I described in my last post, owe their existence to the woman who collected these quilts over the years, Joanna Semel Rose. And after I read the story of how this exhibit came to be I had to know more about her.
Her husband, described as a scion of a wealthy real estate family, asked her what she wanted for her eightieth birthday this year, and she said, "Something I've not seen before and something that would be a gift to New York City," and that something became the gift of seeing all her red-and-white quilts at one time in one place. Further contributions from family members meant that no admission fee was charged to see this exhibit. This woman clearly does not bank at the same place I do.
Joanna Semel graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1952, at a time when a tea set was on the list of required items the young ladies were to bring with them to college and there were maids and porters waiting upon them in the dormitories. She was an English major and seems to have continued to value things intellectual throughout her life since for thirty years she chaired the board of the Partisan Review, an avant-garde literary and cultural journal well known for fostering the likes of TS Eliot and George Orwell. And I even came across a rumor that she might be a member of that super secret group who decides on MacArthur Genius Grants.
A brief Google search also underscores her generosity as her name occurs again and again in connection with donations. Arts and cultural events and organizations seem to be special favorites---she and her husband donated a rehearsal studio for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, but a foundation that bears their name also made a major contribution to the Natural Resources Defense Council, another worthy cause in my own list of worthy causes.
In 2002 in a talk she gave to her classmates at her fiftieth class reunion she says, "We might adopt the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, taking pleasure in natural things, a recognition that beauty is fleeting and imperfect, a reverence for simplicity and the spiritual essence of things. We know it is nourishment for the soul to spend hours reading in a hammock, savoring a Brandenburg Concerto, meandering through a museum. Millicent Carey Mcintosh . . . claimed that it is important for each individual to order her life so that she becomes a happy creative person."
Wabi-sabi, again thanks to Google, involves a Thoreau-like embrace of simplicity, of a joyous poverty, if you will--an ironic connection for someone who has more money than I can even imagine? Perhaps. But she did indeed value these quilts, many of which draw their beauty from their simplicity and which are from the hands of women who probably were not wealthy or privileged in any significant way.
I did not find any everyday details about Joanna Rose's life. There is a suggestion that she might have children in her talk, but only a suggestion. I could not find a single photo of her anywhere, a sign she is not hungry for publicity. Has she ordered her life so that she has become "a happy creative person"? I hope so.
I am sure someone with more time and more skills at searching could uncover much more about her, but I am happy that so far she appears to be an intelligent, curious, generous person who values the arts at a time when they are no longer included in the official list of "the basics," who values knowledge for its own sake at a time when far too often only skills that can increase income are valued, and who can, at the age of 80, come up with a zinger of a great idea. I have added her to my list of those I would love to sit down and have a cup of tea with--although she would definitely object to my ending that sentence with a preposition.
And if you are still reading, thanks for the company!
Her husband, described as a scion of a wealthy real estate family, asked her what she wanted for her eightieth birthday this year, and she said, "Something I've not seen before and something that would be a gift to New York City," and that something became the gift of seeing all her red-and-white quilts at one time in one place. Further contributions from family members meant that no admission fee was charged to see this exhibit. This woman clearly does not bank at the same place I do.
Joanna Semel graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1952, at a time when a tea set was on the list of required items the young ladies were to bring with them to college and there were maids and porters waiting upon them in the dormitories. She was an English major and seems to have continued to value things intellectual throughout her life since for thirty years she chaired the board of the Partisan Review, an avant-garde literary and cultural journal well known for fostering the likes of TS Eliot and George Orwell. And I even came across a rumor that she might be a member of that super secret group who decides on MacArthur Genius Grants.
A brief Google search also underscores her generosity as her name occurs again and again in connection with donations. Arts and cultural events and organizations seem to be special favorites---she and her husband donated a rehearsal studio for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, but a foundation that bears their name also made a major contribution to the Natural Resources Defense Council, another worthy cause in my own list of worthy causes.
In 2002 in a talk she gave to her classmates at her fiftieth class reunion she says, "We might adopt the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, taking pleasure in natural things, a recognition that beauty is fleeting and imperfect, a reverence for simplicity and the spiritual essence of things. We know it is nourishment for the soul to spend hours reading in a hammock, savoring a Brandenburg Concerto, meandering through a museum. Millicent Carey Mcintosh . . . claimed that it is important for each individual to order her life so that she becomes a happy creative person."
Wabi-sabi, again thanks to Google, involves a Thoreau-like embrace of simplicity, of a joyous poverty, if you will--an ironic connection for someone who has more money than I can even imagine? Perhaps. But she did indeed value these quilts, many of which draw their beauty from their simplicity and which are from the hands of women who probably were not wealthy or privileged in any significant way.
I did not find any everyday details about Joanna Rose's life. There is a suggestion that she might have children in her talk, but only a suggestion. I could not find a single photo of her anywhere, a sign she is not hungry for publicity. Has she ordered her life so that she has become "a happy creative person"? I hope so.
I am sure someone with more time and more skills at searching could uncover much more about her, but I am happy that so far she appears to be an intelligent, curious, generous person who values the arts at a time when they are no longer included in the official list of "the basics," who values knowledge for its own sake at a time when far too often only skills that can increase income are valued, and who can, at the age of 80, come up with a zinger of a great idea. I have added her to my list of those I would love to sit down and have a cup of tea with--although she would definitely object to my ending that sentence with a preposition.
And if you are still reading, thanks for the company!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The Early Bird Catches the Bus
So is this worth getting up before 4 AM, driving an hour and a half, and then getting on a bus for another 3 1/2 hour ride? I think it will be. This exhibit of 650 antique red and white quilts in New York City is getting lots of publicity so I am sure I will be shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other quilt lovers in search of a memorable quilt experience. In the afternoon we will visit the Empire Quilters Guild annual exhibit, which holds many promises of beautiful new quilts.
The bus trip is hosted by the Packwood Museum in Lewisburg, where the Quilt Study Group I belong to meets and where I have already spent many pleasurable hours looking at and discussing some of their large collection of antique quilts.
More after I have had a good night's sleep on Saturday night.
The bus trip is hosted by the Packwood Museum in Lewisburg, where the Quilt Study Group I belong to meets and where I have already spent many pleasurable hours looking at and discussing some of their large collection of antique quilts.
More after I have had a good night's sleep on Saturday night.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Celebration!
After a year of not worrying about shows or commissions or selling my quilts, I decided it might be time to enter a show or two. And today I got a large envelope from American Quilt Society with a letter that began "CONGRATULATIONS!" A Toccata of Chickadees is going to Paducah!
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