An Exhibition

For the past several months, we've (DH and I) been preparing for a 6 week Exhibition at our local Carnegie Arts Center., (click on current exhibits).   My goodness, how VERY exciting, and we are sharing the pleasure with artist Ron Nordyke, also of Nebraska.  The staff at the Arts Center makes our items look so beautiful!  I cannot believe how well all is coordinated - Paintings, Boats and Quilts.  You may have seen many of my quilts before, but they look 1000 times better, when well displayed -- I can't take any credit for those skills.  Saturday is a reception for US all.   It takes a lot of coordination, work, plans, schedules, e-mails, setting values on items, to get this assembled.  I know we both have been busy with preparations -- I can only imagine the work it takes to keep new exhibitions coming and going.   Thank YOU to all who work on projects such as these.

Here are photos of my/DH items.  Some might be similar to the web page at Carnegie.

DH is dusting just one of the boats.  He has 10 for display.

We climbed around stuff like this for weeks!  

I've made approox. 10 of this Kaleidoscope quilt, but kept my first!   Notice how the boats (lower right) and the paintings are somewhat coordinated!

I brought 10 quilts for display.   

There's a small boat on the small table.   

The colors in the painting are very similar to the colors in the quilt.  Remember, two different makers. 

 I NEVER thought anything could "blend" with this small Log Cabin but sure enough, the painting and the boat look like they were made to be together.  The deer in the painting are standing near water, that morphs into quilt images.  And the small boat looks perfect with the other 2 items. 

 The colors on the boat are definitely the SAME as the painting of Orcas, above.  

The African Queen, with a real working boiler, made by a friend in Iowa.   

Again, painting blends so nicely to quilt. 

This is probably my own favorite quilt.  

We both LOVE this painting - perhaps this is a new one that Mr. Nordyke said he was hoping to paint, when we saw our boat photos.   

Another favorite - "STEPS", meaning naturally, the steps in our lives, good or bad, easy or exciting or calm or not calm.   

My goodness, how this one shines, with all the extra pieces of glass.  

I noticed a lot of combinations of texture.  Fabric, wood, metal, glass, ceramics -- things that just BEG a person to touch.   

 A couple from California had stopped on their way to visit cousins and had questions, comments and were happy they ran into us.  So were we happy to run into them.  8-))  

What an honor to have been asked to present our humble efforts.  Just goes to show, we quilters, and boat builders, and artists are all talented more than we know.  Having our projects displayed in a beautiful location definitely boosts our own self-esteem.

We were asked to write an Artist Statement.  Oh TERROR!  First I had to Google the term to see what might be needed.  But writing it, thinking about why I do what I do, was enlightening and encouraging.  

If you have the chance to display your items, go for it!  We are immensely grateful for this joyful experience.