Art Gallery

I was honored to be asked to enter and then super-excited and shocked to be accepted to show one of my quilts in a local art gallery.  The fall special exhibit was entitled, “Farms & Barns 11”.  (I assume eleventh year with this special theme in the fall.)

 

A beautiful town ~~ this was on my way home after I set-up my quilt.

The acceptance letter also let me know there would be an opening reception of the special exhibit in just a few weeks.  I kindly told P that he would “get” to be my arm candy that night!  (His comment while driving away was along the lines of there went 2 hours of his life that he’d never get back.)

My guild friend that suggested I enter the show was at the opening reception and we were able to chat and I met her friend and her husband.  She is so sweet & kind to support me so much like this!

My in-laws came and were thrilled to have their quilt on display.  This is the first time I’ve had the chance to have a photo with my FIL and his quilt.  (the least blurry photo)

All the other exhibitors showed various forms of paintings or digital photographs.  My piece was the only one not for sale and I assume most of the other exhibitors had not made such a personal piece but have their pieces offered for sale on a regular basis.   I felt my work was out of place and it was displayed away from the other works but I was still happy to have my work there.  It was the best lighting the quilt has ever been shown in which thrilled me to see the quilting textures enhanced.

P & me….

This was heading back to the main floor after we looked at children’s art work displayed in the basement.

I sent the gallery director jpegs to print out of 2 of the labels on the back.  Hopefully no one was touching to read the back of the quilt so these 2 frames had information about the quilt.

FIL was curious about my selfie so I showed him an example…. and we got the 2 of us!  😉

Waiting for time to pass and letting MIL rest instead of standing.

I hope I can get more advance notice for future special exhibits and be able to create for another gallery show.  It is a beautiful gallery!

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His 80th Birthday

Finally, on the 23rd of December, my father-in-law celebrated his 80th birthday.  I say “finally” as his gift has been done since the very beginning of October and I was finally able to give it to him!  🙂

Meet the Farm Quilt:

The quilt is 52″ x 90″… I know, long & skinny, but so is Grandpa!  This represents an aerial view of the family farm and the way it was planted for the 2011 crop year.  The darkest green fields were corn, medium green were soybeans, some hay, and the gold fields were our wheat fields. The quilt has a lot of story that I’ll share with you next month in another post.

Since this is about FIL’s birthday… here they are as Phil held the quilt up as they started to figure out what it was all about.

 

Later, MIL made him pose by the quilt with the cards he received that had 80th birthday on them.

 

They were pretty quiet during the big reveal but that is sort of what I expected.  They were interested in the story, my award and the guild show where I had entered it, and the whole process of making it.  At one time, he said, “How did you think of this?”  I laughed as it has been stewing in my mind for years to make a farm quilt.

JP stayed a bit longer for cake & ice cream with them but Phil & I came home as I had more cooking to do yet.  It was 9:20 — past their bedtime as well!!   As we left, FIL thanked me again for the quilt and said, “I’m overwhelmed.”

They were here on the 25th for dinner with some family and he brought it along for show & tell.  🙂  I think he is pretty proud of it!

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