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!

Here We Go Again

I am in Week 1 of another online class with Canadian quilt artist Pamela Allen.  This one is about working in a series.  We got to select our own subject matter.  I have chosen trees/landscapes/mountains.  Not very far from my comfort zone, am I?

In Lesson One, we began as we have in other workshops by choosing paintings which we admire, pulling fabrics that are in the same palette, and making a color study of the painting in fabric.  I chose this portrait by the Impressionist Mary Cassatt called Mlle. C Lydia Cassatt (the artist's sister.)

After pulling my fabrics, I cut out shapes freehand and came up with this.

I really loved this attempt, but when comparing it to the original image, my backgrounds were too light.  Pamela did her magic with her photo editing and suggested the darker values to make the figure pop.

That does look much more like the original.  I tried again this afternoon and came up with this version.  Now I am waiting to hear from PamelaMaMa to see if I "done good!"

You may have seen the Cassatt portrait if you are one of the growing numbers of people who have discovered Pinterest.  I'm not sure how I discovered this online pinboard, but it is extremely addictive and interesting.  Members post pictures that they have come across online and pin them onto "boards" listed by categories.  One of my boards is "Paintings I Love."  Check it out!  I've got one on quilts, art quilts, fiber art, and color inspiration, among others.