Houston, Part 4

While we are in Houston we take one day as a museum day.  We found this extraordinary place a couple of years ago.  It is a little gem, almost hidden, on the fringe of Museum Way.  Houston has many great museums and we have visited a few, but this is a favorite. It does not have a permanent exhibit, so it was totally different this year. You can read more about the center and its current exhibits here.

From their website:

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) is pleased to present Wendy Maruyama:  The wildLIFE Project, an exhibition that serves to illustrate the plight of elephants and the illegal ivory trade. Through a moving installation of life-sized objects made from exotic woods and string and shrine-like forms made from steel and glass, the show makes a compelling case for the preservation of animals in the wild.

 All of these incredible masks, floor to ceiling high, were made by the same artist, Maruyama. There were several more that I did not photograph.

These "ivory" tusks were made of glass and so, so beautiful.

This was just one of three exhibitions at the center.  You can read more about them on their website.

Please come back and I will show you the artists in residence. 

Houston, Part 3

A few more that caught my eye.

 This huge exhibit, Shower Trees, was all made by the same person, Katley Nakajma.  I couldn't get the whole thing in, no matter how far back I stood.  I think there were 10 panels

The workmanship was extraordinary.


If you follow my blog, you will have seen my button piece, so I was inthralled by this all-button quilt in the Embellished Category.  Shame on me for not getting the artist.  If you know who it is, please let me know.

You had to stand way back to see the succulent.  I think it was about 16" square.  I know how much work my 12" square was, so I was very impressed.  It did not ribbon, but I thought it should have.

Many, many buttons and beads.

One of the great things about Festival is meeting up with old friends and blog buddies.  Here we are having lunch at the Mexican restaurant in the Hilton.

L to R: Linda Minton, Maggie Winfield in one of her fabulous outfits that she makes from recycled thrift shop finds, me, and my sister, Ruth.

What is it about feathers that is so appealing?  I've often thought of making a feather quilt.  I have some neat stencils and a few real feathers.  I actually have made a small feather quilt where I played with a macro shot of a feather in Photo Shop and then printed on fabric.  I really liked the results.  Now seeing this beauty makes me want to do more.

Look at the beautiful quilting!

More From Houston

I gave you the link in my last post where you can see all of the big winners, so I'm not showing them here. These are just a few that caught my eye for one reason or another,



This is Noriko Endo's new direction, as she called it when she saw me drooling over her quilt.  I just love this new style, so very different than the confetti quilts, for which she became famous. She is still in love with trees, but is interpreting them in a whole new way.  Notice the white trees that she painted after doing extensive quilting.  I have painted on quilts that have already been quilted, but this is a very different look that I am anxious to try.  See the details below and click on the pictures for a bigger view.

My Hands, by a former hand model, Sandy Curran, whose hands are now full of age spots and wrinkles and gnarled joints.  They are no longer beautiful, but they create art.  

 Like Cinderella by Yukiko Maruhama.  I love all those shoes!

Duck Face by Ariko Miyama, portraying his adorable grand daughter and her dog.

 Sorry that I didn't get the artist, but I thought it was a wonderful sentiment.It was in an exhibit where the quilts had to have words on them.

Again, no artist name, but I did like the vibrant colors.

More to come, so please come back.

Wordless Wednesday

Houston!

I just returned last night from my annual trip to the International Quilt Festival in Houston, better known in the quilting world as "Houston". It is always an exciting, altho exhausting time.  My sister, my usual companion, and I try to see EVERY quit and there are hundreds.  Some categories interest us more than others and we give much closer looks at the art quilts, but we still try to see them all.

Of course the first thing we do when getting in for the Preview Night on Wednesday is to find my quilt, if I have one there.  This time I had one in the Abstract Art Quilts, Small category in the Quilts, a Word of Beauty juried exhibit. My quilt is named Big Green Diptych because to me it is a big quilt, but it did not measure big enough to go in the "Large" category.

No ribbons this year, but the competition in my category was fierce with some very big names.  Even some very big names who did not ribbon, so I felt a little better.

Next we usually go check out the Silent Auction quilts to see my donated piece and all the others, too. This is a great way to get a small piece of art by some fabulous quilters at a usually very low price. Here are just a few of my favorites.

By Janet Steadman.  Her ribbon winner in the show was in the same style.

This Japanese man, Hiroko Miyama. always includes his dog and/or grandchildren in his works. He had more than one quilt in other areas of the show. His work is amazing! He won one of the very big prizes two years ago.

Kathy York. I've long admired her work.

Jane Sassaman in her recognizable style. 

That's mine, Succulent Succulents.

Noriko Endo in a break from her usual confetti quilts.  More about her and a bigger quilt in another post to come.

If you want to see all the big winners, go here. 

Be sure to click on any picture for a bigger view of all.  You don't want to miss any of the details.

I'll try to put up some more for the next few days, so please come back.  Much more to come.

Wordless Wednesday

Regional SAQA meeting

Today Nike and I traveled to the lovely town of Simsbury, CT for our regional SAQA meeting.  It was very well attended and we got a lot accomplished.  Those of us that chose to dropped off our entries for the Local Color:CT Stories exhibit. It is a traveling exhibit and they will be juried this weekend and we'll find out next week if we are accepted.  I entered a piece that I had, Snapshots From My Garden.  It was a favorite at my one-woman show so I hope that it gets in.  

We also dropped off our entries for the CT Trunk Show.  I made another Garden Study, but made it to fit the size of 6" x 10". They will be mounted on  8" x 12" black foam core and inserted into clear plastic sleeves. They didn't get as many as hoped so they have extended the deadline until our next meeting.  I forgot to take a picture of it after the stitching, but here it is without the quilting.

I was asked to give a ten minute talk about my one-woman show this past June, how I got the show, how many pieces were hung, what type of gallery, pricing, publicity, etc., etc, and anything that I had learned from the experience. I think it went fairly well in spite of being a bit nervous.

I just got a new haircut and color the other day and now I can see that it really is too short and too dark. Oh, well.....it will grow and fade.
My late husband often teased me about how I talked with my hands and I guess he was right. Every picture that Nike took had me flailing around.

The meeting was held in the downstairs workshop room of the wonderful quilt shop, Sew Inspired Quilt Shop.  It is a fabulous store with a huge selection of fabric. Unfortunately I rarely use commercial fabrics in my work and I have a stash to make a thousand quilts anyway, but I wanted to find a cute button print for the back of my button piece that I showed you last week.  They didn't have one, but they did have this very cute print of thread spool ends.  It is just the right scale and I think it will be perfect.

There was some great Show and Tell, but I didn't take any pictures because I was standing in line with my button piece to show. It was a long drive up and back, but all in all it was a super day and the foliage in CT is at its peak, which made for a very pretty drive.

Wordless Wednesday

All Buttoned Up

It is finished!

The picture is a little skewed, but it really is perfectly 12" square.

I thought you might want to see the back with all those stitches and knots. I am going to fuse a piece of busy fabric to the back, since this is two-sided fusible Peltex.  The backing will have two tabs attached on each side, hidden from the front, so that it can be pinned to the display.  Remember that it can't have a right way up, but must be able to be hung in any direction. I will make a lot of hidden little stitches from front to back to keep the fusible from pulling away.

 I must say that altho it was tedious, it was fun, and nice to do some hand work for a change. Now I'm trying to think of something to do with all the left-over buttons.  Maybe a design on the back of a thrift shop jeans jacket, if I can find one.

If you click on any picture, you can see the details on all of them.  I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday, as usual.

Wordless Wednesday