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!

Some Colorful Art for a Gloomy Winter's Day

We have finally gotten a day of winter weather after many warm, balmy days in January and February.  My dad is here with us this weekend, and we took him to the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh this afternoon.

Here are some exhibits of interest to those of us who love textile art.

This fabulous African costume looks like a patchwork quilt.  Here is the front view.

And it is diplayed so that it can be viewed from the back as well.

This outfit covered the entire body, including the head, but the dancer could see through a mesh area.  Here is the label.

This stunning exhibit is also in the African art area.  It is beautifully woven Kente cloth on the wall, and draped as a robe as Akan royalty would wear it.

All of us who sew recognize what these are.

But who would have thought to create an image of the Mona Lisa with spools of thread?  The image appears to be upside down until you view the piece through a glass sphere that creates a prism effect.

Since we just celebrated Valentine's Day, here is the classic Rodin scupture, The Kiss.

And here are a couple of Thinkers.

My dad is doing great these days, but we borrowed a wheelchair from the museum to conserve his strength as we toured the museum.

Here is the Valentine card that he gave me with some original abstract art.

And for a last bit of color on this gray day, here is the bouquet from my sweetie on the colorful quilt that I made for Dad years ago. 

Stay safe out there if it is snowing where you are.  So far we have just had rain and some sleet, but they say it is coming.