Ste. Marie-aux-Mines, report no. 2

After I had been busy Wednesday morning hanging my show, I was pleased with the final result and the appearance of „my“ side of the church.

The other side was occcupied by Regula Affolter from Switzerland and her „Interpretations of human bodies and blue brains“, an interesting series on brain patterns, head shapes and other radiological phenomena.

In the afternoon my next round in jury-commitments called: we still had to determine the first prize winner of the contest „Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow“. Together with president of the jury Libby Lehman and Linda Colsh I got to see the entire exhibition of the chosen pieces in advance at the Chapelle Saint Joseph. We quickly agreed that the quilt which had received the single highest number of points in the individual rounds of judging was actually worthy of receiving „Best of Show“.

"Remembering" by Linda Kemshall, recipient of "Best of Show"
at this year's contest at the Carrefour

I slept very badly in the night before Thursday – too excited... 

People were already standing in front of the gates of the Espace commerciale when I was heading towards the church just after nine o’clock, and the first visitors entered the church at ten past nine – official opening time of the exhibit was 9:30!

After that the entire day was a constant stream of visitors.

Friday was very busy as well, but slighly fewer visitors on Saturday and even less on Sunday.

I can’t say how often I had to verify that my lines are not appliquéd, and that yes, these lines can be sewn, and with a machine. It seems this was just very hard to believe for most people who were there. And several thousand pictures were taken, I can’t even guess how many they actually were.

It was wonderful to hear so much praise and receive so much admiration for what I had worked on for so long. And I was particularly pleased to meet Lucia Stacchetti of the „Quilt Triennale“, Cathy Izzo and Dale Riehl of the Art Quilt Gallery in New York City, and last but not least the American Art Quilt Collector Jack Walsh, all of whom took the time to stop by and take a look at my exhibition.

On Sunday things turned more quiet, and as I had time to actually sit down on my chair I spent some time looking at Play of Lines XXX and XXIV: Tangle hanging right next to each other. And I started doodling with the thought how either of these two could be improved.

Or parts of them could even be combined to form an entirely new set of lines.

Perhaps a new combination of lines?

So I returned home with several ideas already churning in my head. It’s just a problem of increasing the number of hours per day so I can get everything finished, given all the other things that have been put off for so long and are now waiting to be taken care of.