9/28/2014

Art Prize: a Bit of the Quilting Side

On Saturday I met my daughter and her boyfriend in Grand Rapids so that we could explore some of the Art Prize entries around the city center (approximately 3 miles). The art pieces are displayed inside and outside many venues (hotels, museums, restaurants, businesses, etc.) You can read more about this event HERE

I took photos of some of the quilt-related pieces that we came upon. Please click the links I have included to find out more about the pieces or places I've mentioned in the blog.

RUST BELT was an interesting quilt by Jenny Lynn which compared the 1950 and 2010 populations of some of America's largest cities and showed decline in all. I like that she used the colors red, black and white. I appreciate that she used math to calculate the difference in size of the inner and outer squares of each block. 
(Click the link to Rust Belt for better photos than mine. Bright sun shining in the windows from behind the piece made my photos under par.) 



At the same venue (a bank) was MISSION PENINSULA BARNS. These paintings by Linda Bassford depict 9 of 10 barns on the Quilt Block Trail through Old Mission Peninsula (located in the northwest corner of Michigan's Lower Peninsula). She arranged the paintings, framed in a shadow box, using a 3 x 3 block layout, like a quilt. You can find out more about the Barn Trail HERE.


INDIGO GEMS of ARGUS was also at this venue. This quilt was made with cottons and feathers. It appeared that some type of yarn was used in the seams of each of the blocks. Robin Greve tells about her quilt in the artist's statement:
"This is an art quilt that is made with a 3-dimensional appearance and the Golden Mean Ratio ( 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, etc.) in the different proportions. It is then assembled in a nontraditional method after each square/ rectangle is first quilted."


I was drawn to the piece, FEEL BEAUTY. The texture was so inviting, although I did not touch it. I will quote the description from the Art Prize website as it explains the piece much better than I could: 
“Feel Beauty” Fiber Mural exhibit engages the senses. The viewer interacts with the work and is encouraged to touch and feel their way through the mural. “Feel Beauty” was completed using all monochromatic white fibers connected in various sized embroidery hoops. Technical fiber manipulations were employed to create different sensual topographies, from hard to soft, round to ridged and deep to shallow. This mural raises awareness of blindness and learning through senses other than sight. We are exploring the tension between what we see and feel. This project begs us to question art for the other senses, and what the role of aesthetics is in this process. Is there a non-visual aesthetic? What does beauty feel like? This is a collaborative piece, designed by Hark + Hark, and executed with the assistance of UC professor Brooke Brandewie and 29 local fiber artists from Cincinnati, OH.


While this next piece is not a quilt, I was fascinated by the work involved by this young artist, Megan Harrigan, from Traverse City, Michigan. THE BEADED TREE was spectacular. Megan was standing by her piece and I was able to talk to her. She said she spent 10 months, about 5 or 6 hours a day (with it on her lap most of the time) sewing beads to the heavy canvas on which she had previously painted her tree. She wanted the sun to shine through and the colors to add life to the tree. 


I hope you have enjoyed seeing some of what we saw on our walking trip around Art Prize. And now I will leave you with the beautiful painting nature had for me on my drive home. (I did pull off on the side of the rural road to take this photo.) 






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