Muestra Fusion, Part B

December 14th, 2007

So, here is the show, Muestra Fusion, all set up finally at a few minutes past 2pm, and with some people shots taken at various times from when we opened to the public UR and UL, to early (LL) and late (LR) evening shots close to midnight.

My goodness Petra has vision; she came up with the scheme to make technical alterations, the hanging of a false wall which hid some of the windows and much of the less than desirable nipple pink walls of the room. And she knew just the right person to do it. It was fascinating to see Caco and his assistant, whose name escapes me just for the moment, working efficiently, measuring everything carefully but fast, they knew exactly what they were doing and in what order – a well planned out series of manoeuvres.

The little downlights were poised over each of Petra’s stands holding pieces of gold jewellery, and the larger lights on the beams at ceiling height were directed onto my quilts. They were great. And so was everyone else who helped us, from the friend who came up right at the last minute with the clothes steamer we needed, to the women we hired to serve drinks and sandwiches, empanadas and cheese balls and crackers; the husbands who did various fetching and carrying things particularly Petra’s husband Eduardo, my DH was safely out in the campo working until the day or so before.

In the aftermath, we decided we’d do it again together, but never again for one day only, and preferably putting ourselves in the hands of an agent. There is at least one keen on being ‘it’ and placing both our works during the season at Punta – so who knows where that will all lead, por suerte. It was interesting who came and who didn’t. Several people who have said to me many times “I’d love to see your quilts some time, Alison…” didn’t take this opportunity; and others, who I really didn’t think would be so interested as to come 20 km out, came bringing friends and rels. You just can’t tell. We staggered home with the quilts, some leftover sandwiches, part cheese ball and wine, and flopped into bed at 2am, but were on deck again out there to clear out the rest of the stuff at 8-30 am. I was bone weary all day monday, but since then there have been several interesting phone calls as people begin following up on some of our conversations, opportunity is beginning to knock in several different directions. And the additional expense I have recently gone to having designed and printed off some brochures or follettas about my work, in spanish and english with statement “Influences and Inspirations/Influencias e Inspiraciones” some pictures and a selected cv, has clearly been a good move and well received by all who have seen and taken one.

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Egypt – Tentmaker Works Installed

December 5th, 2007

At last, the two magnificent large tentmaker pieces we bought in Egypt are in place, and here are the pics to show these wonderful textiles in their new home. The one on the bed is in our guest room. This elegant colour combination would grace any interior anywhere in the world, and compatible to a whole range of decor styles. I would describe our home here as basically Uruguay conservative modern, with many eclectic touches by owner. So it fits in perfectly, right? The carpet is the same neutral plain light milk-coffee colour you can see in the photo of the other room, our own bedroom. These are hand applique works, the pieces sewn piece by piece directly on to the canvas base which is a bit heavier than artist canvas, possibly a light sail weight, just to give you some idea. Of course, this means they are pretty heavy, and the cover will need to be rolled back when the bed is in use. There is no further backing, so quite a bit of the stitching is visible here and there. Ref: Tentmakers blog entry for sept 9th 2007
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Exhibition Invitation

December 2nd, 2007

You’re all invited ! but I don’t expect to see too many of you here next sunday when Petra Eberl and I are showing our latest works in an all day exhibition. It will be open from 2pm to midnight – a marathon – and it’s sure to be hot. The theory is that as our rental begins from 8-30am, we will be there on the dot to get my 8-10 quilts hung, lighting positioned, her domed plinths in place and everything else set up in 4-4/12 hours, before going home to change and appear all fresh and breezy to greet our first visitors ! Petra’s wonderful handmade 18ct jewellery can be seen on her website, www.petraeberl.com The invitation design was a joint effort; I am not sure who came up with the notion of sewing gold stitching across (the ends are left hanging free, but don’t show in this pic) but it seemed like the perfect ‘fusion’ of our very different works of art. We had 1000 printed, and it took about 12 hours and about 500m (half onew of those big Aus$18 cones of gold thread to sew the wavy lines across each one. The wastage, less than 5%, was smaller than I feared. Of course, if you make a mistake on paper the needle holes are there, period. But many of the false starts were worth re-doing, and I got pretty skilled and quick at retracing my steps and going over each hole again. The most common reason for needing to do this was the occasional thread problem, either snapping or suddenly bunching up underneath. A few however were not retrievable, but it was a better result than I feared even though I had practised and done samples for different effects on other cards before I received the printed ones. I took a few invites to friends in Aus – the common reaction was ‘wow’.

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Frankfurt

December 2nd, 2007

Dear reader, I am just back from a 2-week trip to Australia, aware that I have not posted in a while -but my internet time was short and infrequent. En route I had to lay over in Frankfurt Germany for about 36 hours. I went prepared for it to be cold – and my goodness was it cold !, Much of the time it was on the verge of snowing and did so just a few minutes after an obliging fellow tourist took this snap of me on one of the bridges over the river Main (LL) All of a sudden we were almost in whiteout, well, blurred-out, anyway, and the hard little balls made soft crisp sounds as they landed on my jacket and the leaves (LR)

Despite the freezing cold I took my hands out of my gloves to snap these stele (UL & UR) in the grounds of the ethnological museum which was my destination. These fabulous. fascoinating objects are from, um, I think it was Ethiopia. I couldn’t read the German well enough to give you a clear accurate description, but to me they say something spiritual with some watching or guardian function. Although you may think otherwise, I really took the photo because of their incised markings: the same primal patterns of groups of lines and other small marks that appear in lots of other places and objects from around the world.

I enjoyed my full day there as the flight to Singapore didn’t leave until almost midnight, so I had a lot of walking around time, which was good in between long haul flights. An art museum in central Frankfurt was showing Moreau, Turner and Hugo and the rise of abstract impressionism, a very interesting exhibition which I thoroughly enjoyed. I visited several other museums and galleries, learned a bit about the ancient history of the city from the earliest times to the present, and found time to do a little unscheduled shopping there, but found nothing of note specifically textile related despite asking around.

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Obsessing About Cups and Saucers

November 7th, 2007

In a current family grapevine discussion I began wondering about the obsession an aging relative seems to have about her fine bone china gold rimmed cups and saucers. Our own mother was also rather obsessive about who would take care of her considerable stock of them. She grew up in a time when afternoon tea was served daily in Australian homes with home baked goodies and some degree of ritual. On week days this was around the kitchen table, saturday afternoon possibly outside in the garden, in each case using kitchen cups and saucers and accessories. On sundays it was served with ceremony in the lounge room – generally with close rellies in attendance, mulling over the week just passed and what they knew or presumed of the week to come. The household stock of delicate porcelain china cups, saucers, silver teaspoons and cake forks, matching milk jug and sugar bowl and other accessories, including pretty cake plates, had regular and frequent workouts. Many years back, knowing she was approaching the end of her life, she had a fixation about someone taking the tea cups and saucers. Someone did take a few, I didn’t, but I did take a very old coffee set for my daughter who’s marrying soon, and I’m about to hand it on to her.

Right now an elderly aunt is in some state about her cups and saucers. A couple of years ago, she moved into an assisted living hostel, and although some cups and saucers went with her (I am sure they have never been used to serve tea in her room) – it was partly to ease her from independent living, where she did indeed serve tea, regularly, with precisely followed decades-old rituals. Today’s discussion by email on the family grapevine set me thinking – some time in the future will we too get obsessive and fret for loving homes for our coffee mugs? whenever? Heck, DH and I have quite a few in the cupboard I rather dislike. There are heaps of better designed, more interesting ones around; but, well you don’t just pitch stuff that still works, was how we grew up, and DH bought them, so they stay and are used daily. Unfortunately they are tough and their natural attrition is very slow! Back to the obsession with cups and saucers – where does this obsession come from – is it just a function of age? Or does it have to do with having lived all your adult life in the one place, as Mum and Aunt did? We have lived in many places, with and without our household gear, the houshold stuff has had spells in storage, and in effect is in storage again, in Australia; and we are living surrounded by other cups and saucers here in Uruguay. I don’t feel any approaching obsession yet …..

Oh, and this little antique coffee cup and saucer is Royal Worcester, Regency, from the late C19. Very fine bone china and so delicate to drink from. Until this morning I had sort of forgotten it was at the back of the cupboard….and it is so totally not my style, either. Any family takers? R? I have no idea from whose life this is a souvenir, and there was only one on sale.

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