The opening reception for the bi-annual fiber exhibit at the Western Colorado Center for the Arts was last Friday night. The Art Center was given a large and impressive collection of Native American textiles a number of years ago, with the stipulation that they are exhibited on a regular basis. They have been shown, filling one of the Center's three galleries, at least once altogether (or at least most of them.) But for the past number of years, the Center hosts an invitational fiber exhibit every few years, showing a selection from their collection along side work from fiber artists from the region.
The exhibit usually has a LOT of art quilts, but they were strangely absent this year, possibly because the quilters have had a large exhibit in the Court House Gallery for the past few months. So Art-to-Wear was featured this year. There was a fashion show early in the evening, and the models took turns throughout the reception standing on pedestals in the gallery. The three pieces above were all made by the same young lady. The white dress in the top photo was completely constructed (quite beautifully) from plastic Walmart bags! The little boy in the next photo is the artist's son, wearing a jacket made from magazine pages. I was amazed because he was a 'rough-and-tumble' kid, but his jacket held up beautifully! Her work all seemed to be constructed to survive. My favorite piece was the beautiful southern-belle style gown, made completely from phone book pages! The bodice is from the Yellow Pages, and the skirt from the white pages. This model was on the pedestal for a while, then went out and danced in the lobby, where there was music playing. People touched and looked closely at the gown, but it moved gracefully with her, as if it was made from the finest silk! The artist must be an amazing seamstress!
The reception was well attended, and even quite crowded at times (I was worried that the gowns might not survive the crush, but they did.) At the end of the evening, my husband took a photo of me by my pieces, hung in the corner. I look a bit tired, don't I? I should have had him take the photo in the early part of the evening!
There was good response to my tapestries, and my small 'process' poster helped, I think, though I should have made it larger. Next time.... I always learn something from exhibiting! And that is a Good Thing.
5 comments:
Your tapestries look beautiful and the whole exhibit looks wonderful. I enjoyed reading about the clothing too.
I agree with Janette about the clothing! I took a workshop once on how to make "yarn" out of plastic grocery bags to make a tote bag. I never made one, but the process is interesting. I wonder how this gal got the effects she got...
Wish I lived closer so I could go see the show so I could see your tapestries in person, maybe someday!
I'm looking forward to the reaction at my art guild when I finally bring a tapestry piece to show for the "artist of the month"... it looks like it won't be sooner than November as I'm working on a sampler now and the next meeting is this coming Thursday (the 11th) hope to get something ready in time for November that's not a sampler!
What a fun evening. I would have loved to have seen it all and your tapestries look stunning on the wall.
Sounds like you had a great time.
It is great to see your tapestries with a person in the picture, I get a much better idea of the size. I think they look gorgeous. The wintry trees are especially effective. And I still love the Booker one.
It was great to see the pics of the clothing and read about them too. Thanks.
Post a Comment