You Make My Day!

January 9, 2008

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Gerrie gave me the “You Make My Day” award. Thanks Gerrie! Now I have to give it to ten other bloggers, which is hard because there are so many great ones out there. But here’s a list of some people who consistently post things that cheer me up, or get me thinking about or working on some new idea:

Judy, Joanie, Jeanne, Lisa, Alyson, Gwen, Emmie, Jane, and back at you, Gerrie…

And I’d have to say number ten is you! Thanks for reading, all the great comments, and sharing  over the past three years of blogging.

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2007 Missouri Arts Awards

February 11, 2007

On Wednesday, we were at the capital for the 2007 Missouri Art Awards. Here is Russ standing between Missouri State Govenor Blunt and the First Lady, just after he received recognition in the Individual Artist category — the highest honor an artist can receive in the State of Missouri.

The ceremony was held at the State Capitol building. Although I grew in near this building, and it was always a part of our hometown landscape and culture, I don’t think I really appreciated it when I was there.

Since then, I’ve read some histories of the building. Most surprising to me was that 25% of the original architectural budget for the building was earmarked for decoration. Decoration! Do you realize what that means? That means ART! It does put some of our current 1% for the arts programs to shame, and remember that many building budgets don’t even have that.

This explains a lot about the building — the fact that there are statues, carvings and paintings everywhere throughout the capitol. Most famous are some large murals painted by Thomas Hart Benton. Above is a photo looking up through the rotunda, but I don’t know who painted these murals. There also should be a huge chandelier in the center, but it got dropped during cleaning and maintenance last fall. I think it’s going to take $600,000 to replace.

After the ceremony, we all traveled a couple of blocks to the Governor’s Mansion for a nice reception. Many friends of the arts in Missouri were there to celebrate because Governor Blunt has recommended $8 million in his budget to go the Missouri Arts budget, up from $3 million last year and up from zero in 2004. Yay! All in all, it was a good day for the arts.

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Russ’s Award

February 4, 2007

Not all the news from RuBert Studios is bad. On Wednesday, we’ll be traveling to the state capital for Russ to recieve his award from Govenor Blunt and the Missouri Arts Council. Each year the State of Missouri recognizes only one individual artist (including performing artists), so this is a huge honor. The award ceremony will be at the capitol rotunda at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, with a reception following at the state Governor’s Mansion.

Another notable artist is Susan Leslie Lumsden. She’s a member of Uncommon Threads and also a friend. Her work (an art quilt) was selected to grace the cover of this year’s poster and invitation.

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Houston IQA Show and Museums

November 5, 2006

Just got back from the International Quilt Festival in Houston where I saw a lot of great stuff. Maybe in December when I get my show installed, I’ll have time to post a gallery of photos like I did last year. When you walk around a show like this, you notice the award-winners, but you also notice some great pieces that didn’t get ribbons. This is “Gerbera” by Mandi Ballard.

This is a photo of the George R. Brown convention center from the twenty-fourth floor of the Hilton. What part of this huge building that isn’t filled with quilts during the festival is filled with thousands of booths of people selling stuff like fabric, buttons, thread and sewing machines to quilt-makers. Ask me how I know :)

Here’s me at the awards ceremony doing my impression of a two-headed alien. Well, it was on Halloween after all…

Here’s the Best of Show “Mother Earth and Her Children” by Sieglinde Schoen Smith. I’m glad she won best of show, because she entered this quilt in my catergory, Whimsical Quilts. So that means that all the rest of us got bumped up one notch, and I won second place :) I also had another quilt “The Vintage Purse” in the “Best of SAQA exhibit - The Creative Force.”

Another reason that I went to Houston this year was to visit the wonderful museums that are only a few minutes away from the IQA show and accessible by the Metro train. The Museum of Contemporary Art had fantastic installations by Pipilotti Rist, a Danish video artist who explores themes of being feminine, love and the struggle for independence.

The Houston Museum of Fine Arts has two huge buildings full of art and there were also a couple of fun exhibits — Best of Show (the dog portrayed in art from the Renaissance to today) and the Cats Meow was a similar exploration. Saw a Damien Hirst installation and another wonderful exhibit…The Past Made Present (how different artists show memories in their work). And the Houston Museum of Contemporary Craft had a great show also. Finding Balance: Reconciling the Masculine and the Feminine.

I think it’s interesting that many art quilters say they want to be accepted by the art world, and yet few of them show much interest in any other art form or in other contemporary artists. On the Quilt Art list today there has been lots of discussion related to how art shows are juried and judged, so I posted a comment about visiting these museum exhibits. I was curious if anyone would email me and say, Hey, I went to those museums also! But so far haven’t heard a peep from anyone.

Since I travel to a lot of places to see art, I’m really impressed that I could go to the IQA show and visit three top-notch museums within a few blocks of each other. Too bad more people don’t realize this. It’s good to encourage people to take design classes, but to really be serious about making art, you need to look at a lot of other art (and not just at other people who are also trying to learn to make art) just as to be a good writer, you not only need to take writing classes, but you need to read great literature and poetry.

I enjoyed the IQA show very much, but I really don’t get much inspiration from other quilters because I don’t want to imitate what others are doing better. I got a lot of interesting ideas from seeing these other exhibits.

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Houston Calling

September 19, 2006

Quilts Inc. called today and left a message. My quilt won a cash award. I wonder what it is???? I’m happy, but won’t know what it is until the end of October at the International Quilt Festival.

Ever have trouble deciding what to wear? Stripes are slimming, but then bold prints make such a great statement…hmmm, maybe I just need some more alien accessories.

I was kidding about being abducted by aliens last week. The current project may have been inspired by listening to the B52’s greatest hits cd too many times. They did several funky space songs that are a good accompaniment to cutting fabric.

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Husqvarna Awards

November 1, 2005

I didn’t realize the Husqvarna Awards would be such a big thing until getting to the IQA Festival in Houston. We had a private dinner with a bunch of Husqvarna and Quilt Festival VIPs on Wednesday, and then an awards luncheon the next day. It was fun getting to know the other winners — Helen Godden from Australia (on the left), Ita Ziv from Isreal (right), and Annette Hedricks (not pictured). Look at Helen’s cool Aussie coat and leather pants she wore to the ceremony!

As we each walked up to the podium to accept flowers, a plaque, a crystal trophy, someone read our artistic statements! Most people at the lunch however came to the lunch to hear Libby Lehman’s entertaining lecture. And each one of the five hundred people in attendance got a huge spool of thread as a party favor.

As first place winner, Annette got a huge crystal trophy that I’d like to see her taking through airport security. The rest of us got these cute ones that look like little boats with floating triangles inside. However the sewing machines in the ceremony were just for show - we will get certificates to pick them up at the dealer. There’s also this great catalog that Viking published with photos of all the quilts in the exhibit.

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Escape from the International Quilt Festival

October 29, 2005

“Help!! PaMdora and I are being held prisoner by a mysterious force field!”

Just kidding, I think it’s some sort of tape barrier that is used to surround all the quilts at the International Quilt Festival going on in Houston right now, I suppose to keep the hoards from getting a little too touchy.

We’re home now, and suffering a little art-overload after doing double duty of seeing all of the festival and visiting about eight museums in Houston also. I have loads of photos, so much it will take time to organize.

After one more short trip tomorrow, I hope to get caught up on posting and all the emails I’ve been ignoring!

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