Last Thursday, I flew to Ohio for the opening reception for Material Matters, an incredible exhibit of art quilts at the Columbus Museum of Art.
It turned out to be the largest summer opening this museum has ever
had, with over 1000 visitors in attendance. Here's a picture of me
standing on the museum steps.
There are 39 artists in this exhibit from all over the world, selected from former teachers and students of the Quilt Surface Design Symposium. Considering the extraordinary level of talent represented, I was very honored to be one of the few who had two works invited into this show, Knitted and Transformed. Knitted's image was used for advance publicity and I was one of several artists who was asked to record a cell phone audio tour for my work. If you would like to listen to it, call 614-448-5095 and press 321#. There is also an impressive book available from the museum containing all the works included in the exhibit, as well as a great section written by the guest curators, Linda Fowler and Tracy Rieger.
Here are installation pictures of both my artworks from the show. Unfortunately, after taking the first picture of Knitted, I was asked to turn off the flash on my camera, which is why the picture of Transformed is not very good color-wise. I tried to tweak it, but just made it worse, so it is shown here unchanged.
One of the best parts of going to such a reception is the
opportunity to meet and talk to other artists, the curators and museum
staff. A high proportion of the artists attended, including some of my
favorite people, Marilyn Henrion and Kathy Weaver. Marilyn and I are in at least four different exhibits right now.
An interesting side note is that the museum has a large section dedicated to the great American painter, George Bellows, who was from Columbus. One of his more famous paintings is Lady Jean, a portrait of his daughter. As it turns out, I knew Jean when she was an adult. She lived a couple of blocks from my house in Dobbs Ferry, NY and her family was good friends with our next door neighbors. I was just a little girl at the time, so to me she was always "Mrs. Booth". I do recall going to birthday parties at their house and trick or treating there on Halloween.
