The Gallery Walk - Caught Up in the Moment

The West Chester Gallery Walk was last night, and my art quilt group, Layers: Art in Stitches, was invited to participate in the exhibit hosted by Morgan Stanley - it was our BIG night. And, truth be told, I was very nervous. It's one thing to have your quilts on display at a quilt show for mostly other quilters, but it's entirely different to put your work out there for the general public. I'm happy to report the experience was excellent - a confirmation that the general public "gets" what we "art quilters" are doing, the bending and re-aligning of grandma's quilting rules. The response to our exhibit was exceedingly positive by young and old, quilter and non-quilter, art enthusiast and lay alike - we received a unanimous two thumbs up - it was a good night!

And, yes, I got caught up in the moment, I was absorbed in talking with the viewers, and unfortunately snapped very few photos - sorry. Here's a look at the space we were in - we hung over 40 quilts - thanks to Command strips!


We displayed our work grouped by the various challenges we have held within Layers. Here is Illusion #9, my entry in Kelly's "Everything Old is New Again, challenge.
"Feeling Blue", my entry in the Layers' Tweets Challenge was very well received by the attendees. I was asked a number of times during the night to explain my inspiration for the imagery which, if you've been keeping up with my posts, you'll know that it is my toast to becoming an empty nester. It actually brought tears to one couple's eyes as they too could relate to my story - I guess that's what it's all about.

In addition to displaying our challenges we all had space to display some of our own work. I selected to display these three pieces together - I really love the way they look as a grouping - on the top left is "Driftwood", on the top right is "Glinted Moss", and below is "Drizzle". Most of my pieces were not for purchase as I have plans for them. I did however decide to sell Glinted Moss to a friend and am so happy he is the new owner.


Here is a side view of the grouping - I'm showing this so you can see how I mounted "Glinted Moss" on a stretcher frame. It was clear from the response of attendees that they preferred framed pieces - they could relate to the work as something which belonged on a wall - it felt more defined as art vs. quilt. I've had a number of responses from my post yesterday about mounting pieces and framing pieces, so sometime soon I will devote a post as to how I've started to frame my pieces.
I had my TRUTH quilt in the exhibit last night, "Wilde Ideas - Strings Attached" and I was so excited to see the public's reaction to this quilt - actually 34 quilts - check our my website if you want to see the detail on this quilt - and let me tell you, this quilt's got detail. It is covered in "truth" statements. People were locked into reading all of them - it was really a conversation starter.
Many thanks to Morgan Stanley for giving us this opportunity - it was a wonderful evening and they were gracious hosts! Would I do it again - in a heartbeat! Now, I need to get busy - I have a baby quilt due by Wednesday for the guild's baby quilt challenge - I'm running it and it just wouldn't look good if I didn't have an entry. Tomorrow, a peek at my entry.