A Quilty Visit to the North Carolina Museum of Art

Paintings, textiles, quilting friends, and delicious food made for a perfect day today!  Nine of us went to the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC, which is only about five minutes from my house.  One of the ladies in my art quilt bee arranged for a docent tour of the Impressionist paintings, and of other items in the collection that might be of interest to quilters.

I enjoyed the chance to revisit the Impressionist-style work in the museum collection.  My favorite is this Monet, The Seine at Giverny, Morning Mists.

After brief introductions to the paintings, we visited the Rodin sculpture gallery, a few of the contemporary paintings, and then the African gallery.  We were all gob-smacked by this costume from Africa.

Egungun Masquerade Costume front

Apparently the costume is worn by dancers, who must peer out from between the beads located near the headdress.  At each event, a new panel is added, so this costume is extremely heavy, with many layers of heavy beaded, sequined and stitched fabric.

Egungun Masquerade Costume, detail

I would love to see someone dancing in this get-up, with the ornate panels swirling and moving.

There is another piece in the museum that we all admired, an immense assemblage of labels and parts of everyday items like aluminum cans by El Anatsui titled Lines That Link Humanity.  You can see that it extends from floor to ceiling.

El Anatsui
Dimensions: (irregular) 18 x 25 ft. (5.49 x 7.62 m)
Medium: Discarded aluminum and copper wire

One of the last pieces we viewed was Bride, an amazing display of hand-blown glass staged to look like a tiered wedding cake.  Many of the glass objects recall familiar items from famous paintings, especially still lives.

Bride

Beth Lipman, 2010 

http://ncartmuseum.org/art/detail/bride

Admission to the NCMA is free except for occasional special exhibits.  The docent tour was also free.        

What a great way to spend a morning with friends!