Martha and I took a field trip to Richmond to visit the Quirk Gallery, but first we went to Charlottesville to stay with our friend Mary Beth, someone we both admire greatly. Mary Beth loves animals and houses almost the entire food chain on her 50 acres of land. The food chain used to be complete, but Monty the Python died. He's now out in the woods returning to nature.
Here we are, all three together, courtesy of Photoshop cut and paste. Notice our fine mud walking attire, especially the camo jacket with the pink paisley boots.
The three geese were delighted to be let out of their pen and after a quick snack headed to the pond for a refreshing dip. Along with the geese are eight guinea hens, a variety of semi-exotic chickens (who provide a variety of eggs), a dog that wandered by and then just moved in, and the goat girls.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a good angle, so here we have goat girl butts. They're almost like dogs, they wag their tails and follow Mary Beth around.
This is only a small section of Mary Beth's fabric stash. Notice that not only are they arranged by color, but also by value within the color. Then there are also the novelty fabrics: animals, whimsical stuff, body parts, etc. My fabric has never ever been store this neatly, and never will.
Mary Beth also has a knack for finding odd junk in out of the way places and recycling it into really cool stuff. This is a caned chair that now has beads where there used to be caning.
Would you have thought of doing this? I wouldn't. There is an entire storage room filled with other objects just waiting for the MB treatment.
Anyhow, after spending the night, we headed off to Richmond to the Quirk Gallery to see the Take Cover show.
The gallery is aptly named as they have a variety of quirky art items. The owners had just returned from the American Craft Council show in Baltimore and the Rosen Show in Philadelphia, and will be visiting their accountant to figure out how to pay for all the new stuff they're going to be displaying.
Anyhow, the Take Cover show is an invitational show of art quilts. We walked into the gallery, and one of the owners greeted us and said she would be happy to share any information about the artists that we wanted to know. When we told her we knew half the artists in the show, she laughed and just invited us to enjoy ourselves.
The show received lots of excellent publicity, even a cover story in the arts section of the local paper. Many non-fiber artists visited and were astounded at what they saw. Totally obliterated their previous conception of "quilt".
The gallery was the site of a former stationary/printing shop and they still have some of the old equipment around as accents.
Notice the "chandelier" hanging from the ceiling right below the skylight. It's from a previous show and is constructed of lampshade frames of various sizes wired together, with bits of lampshade material still clinging in various spots.
Here are Lisa Call's two pieces, accented by a printing press. The one on the right is Structures #1, the first of thousands in the series. Well, not quite, but she sure cranks them out! Several pieces were sold, including this one by Eleanor McCain.
Those are very tiny little pieced squares, about 1/2" on a side. This piece was a smaller version of its partner, which was about 10 times as large as this.
So after our whirlwind tour, I am back home and thinking about getting back to doing my own work, as soon as I finish catching up on email and blogs....
Here we are, all three together, courtesy of Photoshop cut and paste. Notice our fine mud walking attire, especially the camo jacket with the pink paisley boots.
The three geese were delighted to be let out of their pen and after a quick snack headed to the pond for a refreshing dip. Along with the geese are eight guinea hens, a variety of semi-exotic chickens (who provide a variety of eggs), a dog that wandered by and then just moved in, and the goat girls.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a good angle, so here we have goat girl butts. They're almost like dogs, they wag their tails and follow Mary Beth around.
This is only a small section of Mary Beth's fabric stash. Notice that not only are they arranged by color, but also by value within the color. Then there are also the novelty fabrics: animals, whimsical stuff, body parts, etc. My fabric has never ever been store this neatly, and never will.
Mary Beth also has a knack for finding odd junk in out of the way places and recycling it into really cool stuff. This is a caned chair that now has beads where there used to be caning.
Would you have thought of doing this? I wouldn't. There is an entire storage room filled with other objects just waiting for the MB treatment.
Anyhow, after spending the night, we headed off to Richmond to the Quirk Gallery to see the Take Cover show.
The gallery is aptly named as they have a variety of quirky art items. The owners had just returned from the American Craft Council show in Baltimore and the Rosen Show in Philadelphia, and will be visiting their accountant to figure out how to pay for all the new stuff they're going to be displaying.
Anyhow, the Take Cover show is an invitational show of art quilts. We walked into the gallery, and one of the owners greeted us and said she would be happy to share any information about the artists that we wanted to know. When we told her we knew half the artists in the show, she laughed and just invited us to enjoy ourselves.
The show received lots of excellent publicity, even a cover story in the arts section of the local paper. Many non-fiber artists visited and were astounded at what they saw. Totally obliterated their previous conception of "quilt".
The gallery was the site of a former stationary/printing shop and they still have some of the old equipment around as accents.
Notice the "chandelier" hanging from the ceiling right below the skylight. It's from a previous show and is constructed of lampshade frames of various sizes wired together, with bits of lampshade material still clinging in various spots.
Here are Lisa Call's two pieces, accented by a printing press. The one on the right is Structures #1, the first of thousands in the series. Well, not quite, but she sure cranks them out! Several pieces were sold, including this one by Eleanor McCain.
Those are very tiny little pieced squares, about 1/2" on a side. This piece was a smaller version of its partner, which was about 10 times as large as this.
So after our whirlwind tour, I am back home and thinking about getting back to doing my own work, as soon as I finish catching up on email and blogs....
