Eye Contact P.S.

So, having just blogged about my entry in the Eye Contact show yesterday morning, this post about the exhibit showed up in the evening on my instagram!  (It's in two pieces because I couldn't screen shot the whole thing in one go.)

Eye Contact

An exhibit called Eye Contact: Creating A Connection has recently opened at the Virginia Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg, VA.  The exhibit runs through September 15, 2020. 

I love everything about this show.  For one thing, I always love a challenge quilt show.  I find all the different, creative ways the challenge topic is expressed to be endlessly fascinating.  I also love this particular show because I have a quilt in it, and I had such a deep experience in making the quilt. 

The quilts are small - 23" wide x 5" high - and the only instruction to the artists was that the subject be "two human eyes looking at the viewer".

Here's my quilt:

Quilts at the Art Institute of Chicago

 

 

The exhibit this past winter-spring in the textile galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago was spectacular.  So spectacular that I went twice!  Going once was just not enough time to soak up the beauty and history of the pieces from their great collection.  I craved another chance to breathe the rarefied air of these wonderful quilts!

And here they are, in no particular order, so all of you who don't live near Chicago get to enjoy them, too.  (I missed a couple of them, due to "too much" chatting, but this is most of them.)

Look at These Cool Buttons!

I did a tiny bit of repair on this jacket, and fell in love with the buttons.  It's a cropped polar fleece jacket from the late 1980s or early 90s.  (And for sale, if you're interested, at my friend Julia's Etsy shop.)  The jacket is by Spanish designer Celia Tejada.  And let me tell you, she had quite an eye for choosing buttons!

Has anyone out there ever seen a button styled like this?  I haven't!  I mean really, how fun is this?!

There are appliquéd red rectangles at the buttonholes, so when the jacket is closed, these clever buttons get the spotlight they deserve!

Here's to those who step out of the box!

Stitching Our Stories

Stitching Our Stories is an exhibit currently running in Santa Fe through October 20.   It's at the Santa Fe Arts Commission’s Community Gallery, 201 W. Marcy Street.  The use of needlework to express  family and social history is one of my favorite topics.  I'd go for sure if I was anywhere close!

The subtitle is:  Connecting Immigrant and Local Communities Through Story Cloths and Conversations.

The programs and exhibit were created by Art and Remembrance, an organization founded around the needlework panels made by Holocaust survivor Esther Nisenthal Krinitz.  The panels illustrate her memories of her early life in Europe and her escape from the Holocaust as a young girl.

Art and Remembrance has created a program called HeART and Story which guides recent immigrants to create their own story cloths about their journeys.  Their work is also on display. 

You can see the lovely Esther Krinitz panels in a book, Memories of Survival, and a video Through the Eye of the Needle (which you can also purchase).

Eye On Elegance exhibit

"Eye on Elegance: Early Quilts of Maryland and Virginia" is the title of the current exhibit at the DAR Museum in Washington DC.  The museum has long been known for its spectacular quilt collection, and here it is on view.  Simply amazing quilts!  Every one is good enough to be on a book cover!

There is an online tour of the exhibit, a great-looking catalog, and several short videos on quilt styles on YouTube.  This is quilt history at its best.  Great research and superior, beyond superior, quilts to see.

The online tour would serve well as a really good introduction to the wonderful world of exquisite needlework and "mistresspiece" quilts for newcomers to the quilt world.  And it is a joy to watch over and over for those of us who have been looking at antique quilts for years.

The exhibit runs through September 5, 2015.  Sadly, I don't have a trip to DC on the calendar this year, but this exhibit makes me want to change my plans!

Needlework That Tells Stories: Exhibit in England

While searching around for something else, I came across notice of this wonderful exhibition at the Time and Tide Museum (lovely name!) in Yarmouth, Norfolk England.  It's called "Frayed: Textiles on the Edge."  It runs through 2 March 2014.  I'd go if I could!

Here's the theme as expressed by Ruth Battersby-Tooke, the exhibit curator, on the exhibit blog:  "...we have collected people's stories as well as the objects .... that had relevance to the idea of making textiles as a therapeutic art.  Not only an occupational therapy, a meaningful and structured way of busying the hands to still the mind, but also a powerful way to communicate, a creative and expressive way to release an inner voice." (The photo above is from the exhibit blog.)

Favorite Quotes #3 - Invisible Work

The poem "Invisible Work" by Alison Luterman has long been one of my favorites.  (Note: It is the second poem on the linked page.)

It's a great poem for me, because it pulls together many aspects of my life - mothering - making art - honoring the life force in the world around us - feeling connected to that larger meaning as we go about our small daily tasks.  I really love that all this, in the end, becomes the definition of art.

Favorite Quotes #2 - Why Make Art?

"Oh, it's outrageous to consider creating art, isn't it? But life is short. And intense. And we need art to inspire and amuse us."
by Lisa Halpern, in "insight: the cornish magazine", 2010.  Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle

This is a brand new favorite quote, not one of my old stand-bys, found last night while musing over college promo materials before chucking them in the recycle bin.

Quilts in Outer Space

Image credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Doesn't this sound like fun?

Astronaut and quilter Karen Nyberg is going to combine these two activities when she joins the space station crew in a couple of weeks.  Read more about her quilting plans here.

I hope she publishes photos of her space quilts when she gets back to Earth.

Favorite Quotes #1 - Nora Naranjo-Morse

Years ago, at a show of Native American art, I fell in love with the sculptures of Nora Naranjo-Morse.  I also fell in love with this statement that was quoted in the description of her artwork.  It's become kind of a goal for what I want art to be in my life.

Asked if she is proud of her work, she says, "Yes....I think so, but even more than that - it sounds like I'm talking about my ego - but I'm amazed at what it does to me when I see it.  I am amazed at the person that I have become, that it makes me want to have character.  It says to me, 'I want you to have integrity.'  In that sense, maybe you should ask them, 'Are you proud of her?' ....  I can't take all this admiration thing too seriously because it's like some joint effort between them and some other force and I am honored to be included."

She is also a poet and a filmmaker.  A nice biography of the artist is here.  And a video made a few years ago at her studio is here.

Naranjo-Morse created a sculpture installation outside the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.  Here's an article about it, and here's a photo from the article.