A Special Guest in Chicago

I'm happy to say that I got to spend an afternoon (almost two weeks ago now) in Chicago with Elizabeth Townsend-Gard, her grad student Madison, and her daughter and friend.  Elizabeth is the creator of the Just Wanna Quilt podcast and community.  She's a gem! 

She is a law professor at Tulane University.  She's blended her love of quilting with her skills in copyright law and business entrepreneurship by creating programs that use the quilt world as a case study for her students.  The podcast is a series of interviews with quilters from all the myriad aspects of the quilting world.  It's simply the best thing to listen while quilting, and the info she is gathering is super useful!  Brilliant, and a boon to everyone involved!  It was so great to meet Elizabeth in person and talk face-to-face, the old fashioned way!

Chicago contributed super wonderful weather (a rarity here in this year of very wet and very cool weather with little blips of super hot and humid every now and then).  We talked quilts and quilt biz over lunch, and continued talking during a visit to the mosaics at the Chicago Cultural Center and a wander through the Art Institute, especially the Thorne Miniature Rooms - two of my favorite Michigan Avenue places since my childhood.  Beauty and quilt inspiration everywhere!

The Cultural Center used to be the main building of the Chicago Public Library, so the mosaics feature literature and authors.  It was built in the 1890s, and gained protected landmark status in the 1970s.

This is the staircase at the south entrance, on Washington and Michigan Ave.

This is one of the floor designs.

The detailed ornaments are delicious.  Yes, that's mother-of-pearl.  There's also lots of glass and gold leaf.  The whole place glistens.

 

And up at the top, there's a magnificent Tiffany dome, surrounded by dense mosaic designs below.

I love this view.  How neat - the contrast between the super intricate designs against the bold geometry and intersecting planes of the architecture.  I think there's a quilt idea in there somewhere... It's beyond gorgeous here!

And I'll also share a few pieces that caught my eye at the Art Institute.  It's always fun to wander there with other people, and discover bits and pieces I haven't seen before.

I've always loved these two tile shapes.  In fact, I first discovered them here at the Art Institute and have long had the idea to make a quilt using them.  Perhaps soon....  Maybe a good way to feature big pieces of my fabrics that I love so much that I don't want to cut up but have been sitting around forever and really should get made into something?  Someday....

I fell in love with the sensitive poses of these two figures.

From the paperweight collection.  I like the faceted ones, which give different views of the flowers inside.  This is also a quilt idea I've had for a long while.  I'm similarly fascinated by city buildings whose windows each reflect a very slightly different view of the buildings across the street. 

And then there's this huge pot.  It's cracked, a bit more than half of the way around.  Those are holes on either side of the crack.  Do you think the pot had been laced back together?  An ancient example of the current visible mending trend?  What do you think?