amazing...

I have had the most incredibly exciting, stimulating, inspiring and humbling weekend. Breaking New Ground, the combined SAQA and SDA conference was a resounding success as far as I am concerned. And I am not even attending the workshops scheduled for this week, I was there only for this weekends symposium and tour.
Out of everything I saw and experienced this weekend there is enough blog fodder for probably a month. I would like to do several blog posts about it and I will go in time order just to keep myself sane. Oh and my journal for this week will be late due to all these happenings...So all the excitement started for me on Friday afternoon when my traveling companions, Nike Cutsumpas and Norma Schlager, arrived at my house. We made it to Wayne, PA just in time to grab dinner and see the last 45 minutes of the opening for ArtQuilt Elements. WOW... that was really all I could say for a while... the show was incredible.

This was the first art quilt exhibit of such caliber that I have ever attended and it blew me away... I did mention the word humbling at the top of the post, well this was the first humbling experience of the weekend. I saw most amazing artwork beautifully displayed in a gorgeous space. (Do check out the Wayne Art Center's website, great place.) Since I do not have any individual artists permission for posting their work, I decided to post only detail shots and link to the artists that created them. These images are not by any means the only ones that spoke to me, call this creative editing...

At the top of the post is a detail of Leaf Fall by Barbara J. Schneider, it an amazing sculptural piece that was also chosen for the postcard and the catalogue cover image. I highly recommend purchasing the catalogue, it is beautifully done.
The black and white in the middle is a detail of Ontario Quest 3 by Barbara W. Watler. This quilt is completely thread painted so you cannot see the surface of the original fabric.
And the delicate piece below is a detail of Pods by Jill Ault. She is using one of my favorite materials - silk organza. On an interesting note - nine of the artworks in this exhibit were sold in the first 24 hours since the exhibit opened, it's that great?! Oh and three hundred people were at the opening! This is great news for all fiber exhibits out there.

Tomorrow I will report on the symposium I attended on Saturday and Wednesday a report on all the art I saw on the tour of Philly galleries. Expect plenty use of words like humbling and inspiring...

PS my website and email are down for a few hours today in case anyone is trying to reach me.. just comment here and I'll get back to you. Thanks!