Showing New Work for a Weekend

 Thirty years ago  Pnina Granirier & her friend Anne (who has passed away & whose last name eludes me) started Artists in our Midst. The idea was people could walk around a neighborhood & go into the homes & studios of artists some of whom operated a bit outside the high end gallery scene. I first participated in this event was in 1997, three years before I retired from teaching. 

When I moved to Yaletown in 2009 I couldn't see a way of continuing to participate, so I dropped out. But earlier this year, Alice Philips invited me to show at her house & I jumped at the chance. She's another textile artist & I really enjoy her work & her company. She is now chairing this event which has a new tag name: West of Main Art Walk.

While I've been living on the east side of George Wainborn Park, I made opportunities for myself to show my work in a lovely grove of trees on the west side of the park. One year & showed the eighteen number quilts I made, & another year I hung "recent work".

The thing about putting up a show is that "a public" gets to see a curated collection, & for the artist, it's an opportunity to take stock, look at a body production & reflect on it. That's really important. The artist has to pause production while all the show-hoopla is happening. This is, as Pooh Bear would say, A Good Thing.

Alice has a marvelous garden, so I could use my clothesline approach to hang larger work in her front & back yard, for the room she gave me was in her basement room which is maybe 12 x 20 feet &, it turned out wonderfully suited to showing my smaller & more recent work.

So here we go, mostly recent work... First the CheckerBoard Series. I've posted most of them before. I am still thinking about re-visiting this zone. I don't think I'm quite finished with this playground!

 The "Confetti Quilts" have been another theme. In a dyeing workshop I came home with a batch of Procyon dye recipes & postage-stamp swatches glued on paper. I soaked by dye recipe pages in water, got the paste out of the samples, & voila -- confetti patches! In various stages of completion.

Then the Fiji/Post Fiji series. 

          I did some of the sewing work in Fiji & the major composition work when I got home.

    This quilt (Fiji Hot & Humid) is patched by hand & quilted by hand, so the surface is very textured.

Then a final category: Most Recent Work

                                                    
                   And finally 'the look' of the room in Alice's basement & the quilts hanging in the garden.

                                                    Me setting it up with Erica's wonderful help.

Other parts of the room.

The Garden

So what my take-away was: right now my work has an airiness of soft sweet colors & shapes. 

It seems to make me happy & others too.

And the Last Word goes to The Garden!

HEAVEN!

That's it for now.