Exhibit at Visions Art Museum 11-02-13

After spending the night at an HIE near Sea World (ate TWO cinnamon rolls for breakfast), I drove back to the museum for a few photos while things were quiet - as they usually are in the morning. 
I enjoyed giving a little tour to a few ladies who came in, but I was very disappointed that the Gallery Guides have not arrived from the printer.  What a let down when we worked so hard to make them exceptional.  Hope they arrive by the opening next Saturday. 
Here are three views of the gallery showing only nine of the 28 quilts on exhibit.

On the left is Terry Grant's "Judith's Garden:, in the background is "Lizard Lock" by Charlotte Patera, "Gravida" by Karen Rips and just the side of "Flowers Grow in Stony Places" by Karin Franzen.

 

Far left is Ruth B. McDowell's wonderfully expressive "Street Corner". then "Strip Tease #1" by Mary Leakey, and on the right "Structured Chaos #14" by Beth Carney.
 

Jenny Bowker made the quilt on the left "Hot Water, Dead Sea", "Red Wave" is by Dianne Firth, and Carol Ann Waugh made "Allegro" on the right.

These happen to all be somewhat subdued quilts, one of the comments I heard several times last night was how bright and cheerful the exhibit is.   But for some unknown reason I photographed mostly calm quilts today.  I rarely see so many TCQC quilts hanging together, I can only hang one large quilt in three of my rooms - too many windows and doors.  Arranged in the gallery I appreciate the interspersed "quiet" quilts, although I doubt many people would count "Red Wave" as calm.  But with the rhythmic repeat of the lines and the limited color palette, I find it is almost hypnotic..

Big day for TCQC 10-22-13

Sorry, I am too tired to finish this post tonight. Check tomorrow afternoon for all the text.

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10-23-13 Noon - I'm BAAAACK! And Corky is also - he'll be at Camp Del until Saturday. Text for pictures has been added. Del

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I was in San Diego again today, this time with my friend Liz Williams along. We delivered the quilts to VAM for the exhibit "New Acquisitions from the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection". These are quilts I have purchased since the previous exhibit at VAM in the summer of 2007. They were not necessarily made after 2007, but purchased after that date.

It is very exciting to see so many of the TCQC quilts on the wall at once - I can only hang about six at one time in my house, and not all in the same room. The exhibit is curated by Beth Smith, Director of Visions Art Museum: Contemporary Quilts and Textiles. It has been interesting to see which quilts she selected out of the 100 or so that I submitted and to hear her reasons why. Some of the quilts are included because I especially wanted them to be seen.

 

 This will be the view from the gallery entrance - minus the tables holding the quilts that are yet to be hung. The hanging process will take about two days, so the installation committee will be back tomorrow to complete the job. On the far left is "Desert Sands" by Dena Dale Crain of Lake Baringo, Kenya, Africa. The small quilt in the center is "Quenching Rain" by Melody Johnson of Palmer, Tennessee. The large quilt to the right is "Not Even Solomon" by Ruth de Vos of Perth, Western Australia.

 

 

Up on the scaffold are Installation bosses Kay Laboda and Kris Herman, and helping line things up is volunteer Ann Pitzer. They are hanging "Structured Chaos #14" by Beth Carney of Yonkers, NY. To the left is "Strip Tease #1" by Mary Leakey of San Juan Bautista, CA.

Ann Pitzer, volunteer, and Debbie Tatz, intern from the museum studies program at Mesa College, hang the triptych "Cowville" by Lisa A. Yoder of San Diego, CA.

 

Museum director Beth Smith stands in the main section of the gallery.  The scaffold is needed to hang these large pieces and adjust them so they are level.  Quilts for the other two walls are on the table.  On the left is “Not Even Solomon”  by Ruth de Vos of Perth, Western Australia.  Behind Beth is “Balance #19” by Ann Johnston of Portland, OR, and to the right is “Cataclysm” by Judith Content of Palo Alto, CA. 

 

 

Here are all eight of the Ruth McDowell quilts that will be hung together in one "room" of the gallery. Laying face down to protect the front of the quilt and the labels are more easily found and read. The latest acquisition is a 2001 Ruth quilt that recently came up in an estate sale and I was the lucky buyer. I have never seen it hanging and I hoped they would hang it before I left today, but no luck there. It is a very wide quilt, as you can see from the hanging slat on the table - 100". I can hardly wait to see it on the wall.

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2007 Quilt Nat'l Opening 05-22-09

Since I had to cancel my road trip to Kansas and Ohio and won't be at the opening of Quilt National, I thought I would look back at 2007 and remember that great trip. That year I discovered that the night before the opening there is a special evening for supporters of The Dairy Barn, Quilt National and also collectors of note. So, by the time of the opening a number were already sold. It is a bit off-putting that if one buys a quilt they won't have it in their hands for several years as the exhibit goes touring across the country - in three sections. The two quilts that I purchased in May 2007 arrived on April 30, 2009 (the week I came home from my Empty Spools 2009 session with Pamela Allen). Talk about a high! All that creative input from the class, topped by two fabulous quilts I own, but hadn't seen for two years. I couldn't wait to get them up on the walls.

"Red Wave" Dianne Firth - 2005 - Turner, Canberra, Australia

Cotton fabric, polyester batting, torn-strip appliqued, machine quilted.

No apparent website or blog.

This quilt is four separate pieces (which are conveniently marked 1 through 4 on the backs. It was inspired by a spicy vegetable root named galangal, closely related to ginger and turmeric.

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I didn't buy this next quilt, I didn't have the funds, even if I hadn't bought the other two! But I think it is spectacular and it is two sided, so I suppose it could be considered two quilts.

"Peach, Pear, Plum" w/artist Elizabeth Brimelow - 2006 - Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK

55"W x 60"L

Silk whole-cloth double-sided quilt; hand and machine stitched, direct and reverse applique, fused, slashed, knotted.

I wasn't able in engage Elizabeth in a lengthy conversation about her techniques, but as I recall the little diagonal lines on the colorful side are slits, while those on the B&W side are hand stitches. There are two tree shapes that are aligned diagonally on each side. This is just the kind of quilt that fascinates me - the more one looks the more one sees.

I appreciate Elizabeth's statement, it seems so apt for her work. "Landscape is where I live, what I look at, what I draw, and what I stitch. My subject is marks made on the land by planting, plowing, and harvesting. Through my hands I have a story to tell, and this connects me to other times, places and cultures." http://www.quiltart.org.uk/elizabethbrimelo.html

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"Structured Chaos #14" with the artist Beth Carney - Yonkers, NY - 2006

64"W x 53"L Cotton fabric; gradation and low-immersion dyed, machine pieced and quilted.

http://www.bethcarneystudio.com/gallery.htm

If you have seen this quilt in the Quilt National 2007 book, you have almost seen a completely different quilt - the color in the book is waaay off. The problem has to do with the pigments used, they are different for dyeing, printing and photographing. We used to use Ecktachome film for blue-violet objects because the color was more true. I imagine that if the picture above was printed in a book the blue-violet would come out red-violet, as in the book. Guess the moral would be that if you make a quilt in these colors, don't expect it to print in true color!
Beth was charming and so excited that her quilt sold so quickly, but perhaps not as excited as her friends who seemed almost delirious. If I were ever to be in her position I would hope my friends would be as supportive. It was an exciting weekend.

The quilt is very closely machine quilted with vertical lines which have just enough variation to create a texture and movement on the back of the quilt. The hand dyed fabric on both sides adds much to my enjoyment of this piece.

First Surfside Quilters Guild Meeting 05-12-09

Today was a special day for about a hundred quilt makers/lovers in south Orange County - the first meeting of the new daytime quilt guild met in San Clemente. Such a vibration in the air from a lot of excited new and potential members. The adjectives that might apply are colorful, exciting, fun, noisy, happy, .... well, you get the idea. GREAT day. I had the privilege of being the inaugural speaker and showed 34 quilts from the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection (20 12"X12" quilts and a file box of fiber postcards were shown, but not discussed). And, of course, I talked and talked and talked - sort of "More than you ever wanted to know about art quilts." But I think I only went overtime about ten minutes! Nobody was sneaking out the back, so they must have enjoyed what was being shown (and said).

Founder and President Nancy Ota

("Structured Chaos #14" - Beth Carney 2006 in background)

Mary Freedman and Sharon Milledge doing Monthly Mini drawing. ("Summer Lily" Ruth McDowell 2004 in background)

Yachi Monarrez, winner of the Monthly Mini made and donated by Nancy Ota. The three little kitties are from Nancy's newest pattern "Hang in there Kitty" and the collapsible stand is an original design by Mary Freedman. Mary and her husband donated twenty of the stands as a fundraiser for this new guild. With everyone doing their part we are off to a great start.