To all of you … thank you!

I am back from the Pacific International Quilt Festival. My exhibit: “Rhapsody in Red: Textile Stories in Scarlet” seems to have been a hit!

It all started on Wednesday morning when I arrived at the show floor to hang the exhibit. I had the help of 2 lovely gentlemen after they finished hanging the exhibit across from mine. We had a few nervous moments as there didn’t seem to be enough rods to go around, but … we managed and made it work. It was very hot in the exhibit area, as the AC was turned off – the doors were open to allow vendors to set up, so there were pallets and machinery moving around. I stucked to my side as I was in the way of everyone coming in – at the end of a the row in front of the doors.

Honestly – I had thought to myself that I was going to take a ton of pictures of the set up, and of course, realized at the last minute that I had failed to do that. But, still, here are some images:

After a couple of hours, the exhibit was ready: cards were pinned to the drapes and I had a chance to stand back and admire almost 5 months of work to get to this point. I took 26 pieces – only two were completely finished from before – the rest, were imagined, created and done between the end of February and mid-July (roughly). Two pieces that I had painted were finally quilted. I am – honestly – very proud of myself.

To all of you, who came, commented and looked me up to tell me you had loved the exhibit – a huge thank you. Your praise for my work and encouragement to keep going made it all worthwhile. All the doubts, second-guessing, wondering if it was worth it … was gone the minute I heard your words.

People had favourites: the one piece that people loved and commented on – and asked how I had done that – was “To See a Nothing”, a large monoprint with paint, windows cut out and paper lamination. It’s the one below, on the left hand side – together with Sketch #116 and “My He”art” belongs to Rex”.

Here are a few more images from the show. Another crowd favourite was “Somewhere in the world there is a wall”, on the left-hand image in the centre. Nobody could believe that it had started as a “white and off-white” piece!

I hope you enjoy these views of the show. And thanks again for all your kind words.

I am off to try to figure out what it is that I need to do now that the deadline is not looming. I still have more pieces to make – yes, using red! Not done yet … stay tuned.

Until I write again, keep cool and create!

Ana