My trip to
Neumünster was strenuous and not without delays, but I won’t go into that. The
textile museum Tuch + Technik is a wonderful presentation
of the history and development of spinning, weaving, in combination with the
local history of Neumünster, which was once called the “Sheffield of
Schleswig-Holstein”. And it is a wonderful venue for the many large quilts of
“Color Improvisation”.
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View over the museum hall when entering |
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Two of Marina Kamenskaya's four quilts |
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Randa Stewens, Uta Lenk, and Kathy Loomis in the background |
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Bonnie Bucknam |
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Nancy Cordry, and Leslie Riley in the background |
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Uta Lenk, Jayne Willoughby Scott, and Cathy Shanahan in the background |
Some of the
quilts are hung on a system that makes it possible for the viewers to take
closer looks at the back sides. Which definitely give very interesting sights
with some of the quilts, e.g. this one by Jayne Willoughby Scott. Seeing the
quilting pattern on the back side certainly adds to the pleasure of having seen
the front!
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Jayne Willoughby Scott, back of "Nightdrawing 14" |
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Jayne Willoughby Scott, Nightdrawing 14 |
The second
part of the exhibition is dedicated to the newest quilts by Nancy Crow, who has
started on a completely new path a little more than a year ago, when she began
making mono-prints.
As I
already mentioned in my last post, Nancy Crow’s name is presented prominently
on the front of the flyer, suggesting that this is the more important part of
the exhibition. The same was true for the opening speech by Claire Benn, http://www.committedtocloth.com/
who had flown in from London to open the exhibit
on Nancy’s
behalf. She barely mentioned the other fifty quilts that were hanging
throughout the museum.
Because I
had written an article on this ‚coming exhibition’ for the journal of the
German Patchworkgilde in September, for which I had received pictures of Nancy’s quilts, I knew sort
of what to expect in terms of different style of quilts and color.
However,
when I recall what I learned in Nancy’s
classes about colors, design, composition and unity of the whole arrangement, I admit that I was not terribly impressed with some of these quilts.
I admire
the guts that Nancy
has to be starting on such a completely new venture by taking on a new technique,
and I am convinced that it will be very interesting to follow her development. Claire
Benn said in her speech: „And then I tell my students ‚now get to work, and do
at least a hundred of these.’ Nancy is exceptional in that she did.“
But even a
well-known artist perhaps need not exhibit all of these hundred first attempts
as accomplished pieces of art. Of these four quilts in the picture, the one in
the lower right hand corner carries the number 97.
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Nancy Crow, Self-Portraits |
While I was
looking at the exhibit, it was the only one that I really found worth looking
at in more detail, and that I could relate to in some manner. With most of the
others I did not connect easily. When looking at the picture now, I do think
the two white and black ones are also worth looking at, this seems to be an effect of the
zooming onto picture size, though, they certainly did not appear clear or
understandable to me when I was standing in front of them.
It will be
interesting to see numbers 100 and up, because I am sure Nancy has a lot to say through printing.
The exhibit
is on until March 10, 2013, and the museum is within walking distance of the
train station in Neumünster.