This past week has pretty much been totally devoted to getting this 'featured artist' quilt show exhibit up and running. The Sunshine Coast Quilt Guild has been around for many years and currently has maybe 150 members. I’ve belonged to it for about 14 years and most of the people I know on the Coast I met through the quilt groups so doing an exhibit with and for that show is like playing for the home crowd. On the other hand, these are people who have watched my work over the years so they’re not easy to impress. Of course, most of the people who come to the show are not quilters, but people who like to see quilts and don’t need to be wooed. My job this week is to get my quilts up and then to spend a few hours each day keeping them company and talking to people who come through.
The space for my exhibit turned out to be different from what the planners had expected and totally adequate. This part of the show (there are two venues, one in downtown Sechelt and one a few miles north), is in a big Catholic church hall, and includes about 80 quilts plus my twelve. The other venue is smaller, and includes another 40 or so quilts plus a group of wearable art jackets.
Hanging my quilts turned out to be very problematic and if Ed had not been there to help me, I think I would have just turned around with my quilts and gone home. But he was there and he did hang them, although it took him 4 hours to do it. The space is open, about 20 feet long on the back side, and ten feet each at the two ends. There are five quilts along the long wall (the ‘autobiographical quilts’) and two political ones at one end and five more at the other. In the middle, there’s a small table where I preside or something while I’m there.
I’m not entirely comfortable talking to strangers, but there are enough old friends and acquaintances who come by as well, that my anxieties are kept at a reasonable level. Mostly, people are taken by the humor of the pieces which they don’t expect in quilts. Most people make the effort to say something to me, if only to say that they like the pieces or that they admire the effort required for such work, and many want to know what compelled me to make them. Indeed, more want to know that than want to know how I achieve particular effects, which was a little surprising because quilters are often most interested in technical matters.
The quilts like all being together, I think, because it rarely happens: I don't, alas, live in a house with museum-type wall space. I’m happy because I like to see them all together. It’s like having all one’s children home at the same time: a lot of work, but very good for the soul. All in all, a happy three days so far, and I expect tomorrow to be more of the same. We are all pleased, I think!
Individual photos of the quilts in this exhibit can be seen here.
1 comment:
Wonderful! Such a delight to see all of your pieces at once. I do hope that the whole experience is a good one for you (if only in hindsight). I especially like the placement of the Congress and the double self-portrait in the middle. And the crow ladies to the back, that's a laugh, tucked in there. Ed really does deserve kudos for hanging them all so well. I can tell the venue was difficult, so many levels of backdrop.
But the new commissioned piece with the happy dancers- yes, there is much humor in your work. Dry maybe, but deep.
Thanks for the post,
Rose
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