Sunday, January 21, 2007

Quilts to come, and a short break-time

My mom and I went to the Visions Art Quilt exhibit on Friday--it comes to the Oceanside Museum of Art every two years, featuring works of art in fabric. It will soon be housed in its own facility (see the link for info as well as some wonderful pics). There are embellished quilts, paper quilts, beaded quilts, digital photography that has been turned into quilts... and in some cases, paintings with little snips of fabric.

Some people possess extraordinary talent.

We arrived rather late in the day, and luckily hooked up with a docent, who described the artist's concepts behind the pieces, unusual techniques used, etcetera.
This made the experience far more interesting.

Another lady was there viewing the quilts, and mentioned the Road to California exhibit. It was a quilt show of which we weren't familiar, since it's not local to San Diego.
She so impressed upon us the wonders of this show, that my mom and I decided to do the hour and forty minute drive up to the Ontario Convention Center this morning. Serendipity somehow afforded me an unusual Sunday off today...so it was just meant to be.

She also mentioned the necessity of going to the big Houston show, which I would absolutely love to make happen. Paducah as well. But that's for another day.

The Road to California is the largest quilt show in California, featuring over 500 quilts and specialty exhibits. There were quilts featured for the Hoffman challenge, for Alzheimer's awareness (I can't even fully express how amazing these entries were. Unfortunately, photographs of art quilts are not allowed), and several examples of quilts from the 1880's (courtesy of Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Colorado. I am familiar with this museum, ironically, because the now-former curator outbid me on several quilt-related photographs on eBay, and we got to chatting via email. Small world).

We spent about four hours looking at quilts--there was no time or money left, unfortunately, for the vendors. The admission price actually allows entry for multiple days, and classes are even offered in adjacent rooms. We saw doors open in one room where some dynamic fabric painting was taking place (something on my 'to do' list someday soon). I have noticed more quilts embellished with painting recently, and more quilters also seem to be dyeing their own fabrics as well. I was surprised that the majority of the quilts in the Road show seemed to include heat-set jewels (a tool I have coveted but wasn't sure I'd use).

I found myself gravitating to quilts with a more whimsical quality, often in shades of lime green...
funny how our tastes change, twist, and turn over time.
Right now I guess I'm all about chartreuse.
Go figure.

I took a ton of photos, some on my cell phone...so I'm not sure of the quality, but I will be posting as soon as I figure out how, haha. Had I had extra money with me, I would have bought a CD (what an incredible idea they had, to photograph every quilt in the show and sell the collective images), but I have been struggling to get by lately. Sigh. So I will make do with cell phone images. It's something.

My mom and I took a rest at one of the many tables and chairs available (something the San Diego Convention Center needs to adopt), and I became mesmerized through the view in the glass wall, with the way the palm trees were being battered by Santa Ana winds, and the shadows they were casting. I went nuts with photographing a myriad of angles and close-ups.
So those images are to come also.
Right now it's just a heads up and a hello.

I will be taking a short blog break (my first ever!) so I can focus on completing my article for Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine. If I allow myself to be distracted by posting to this blog, I will then want to check bloglines...and I'll want to upload to Flickr....and then all of a sudden the day is gone and I haven't been productive. So, please don't forget about me. I'll be back in a week :).

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4 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

The quilt shows sound wonderful! How inspiring it must have been to be surrounded by so much color & texture. I need to get my hiney up to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum--It's less than an hour from me and I think they even do free admission on the first Saturday of every quarter! I feel a field trip coming on...

8:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great show, I wish we had something like that here on the East Coast.

Glad to hear that you are jumping in on the CPS article - I look foward to seeing it, I know it's going to be great!

12:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Barb, Glad to see the comments of a Rd2CA virgin! It sounds like you and your mother had a good day of it! Road' is a hellacious show to do in one day-- to see and visit the vendors without being totally exhausted and broke all at the same time is a major accomplishment.

I've posted all of my Road' pictures on my website and there's a link thru' to my flickr.com site. Hope you and your mother can come up to Glendale to see that show in March.

Mary Lu

2:39 AM  
Blogger The Calico Cat said...

I've actually been to that quilt show - several years ago, but it is sad for me... I was friendly (not super friendly, but enough) with the gal who asked me to come out & stay with her and go to the show - after she met me it was never the same... I am still wary to "meet" people because of that event... (& unfortunately other similar events...)

Oh & I love lime green!

6:12 AM  

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