Anne Marie Gardens

You know how I'm always on you, dear readers, to get out to your local Art Museum and look around?  Well, here are a few shots from our visit to Anne Marie Sculpture & Art Center, a fifteen minute drive from where I am staying.  I've been here every time I've come to visit my Maryland family, and every time it is a pleasure.

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 In the main gallery, there was a special exhibit, which included this quilt, Cosmos.
 

Here are a couple of details.

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Here's another quilt,

And a sculpture that reminded me of a quilt the first time I saw it.

I'll be home soon.

Just Around the Bend

I've been working my way around the Petals quilt, hand sewing the binding while I "watch" TV. I've got about 12" left on this side, then another 30" around the corner and the Petals quilt will be finished. 

Because of Daylight Savings Time it will be dark when I get home from work from now until the Spring, so I will probably have to wait until the weekend to get any beauty shots of it.

Then I'll pack it up and send it flying across the US to it's home in sunny California with my son and DIL. Could they possibly look any happier? This photo was taken last week at the Long Beach Museum of Art. That colored "wall" behind them was yarn, hanging from the ceiling.

Showing once again how important it is to get out to your local art museum and see what's up.

Inspiration

When I was in Art School I spent a lot of time in the art section of the library pulling one book after another off the shelves, discovering artists. In this way I discovered Frank Stella. He's an American painter, born in New England in 1936. When I discovered him around 1974, I was entranced. If you do a Google images search on Stella, you will be presented with hundreds of images of his work. You can see some other images here, here, here, here, and here.

This painting, which is ten feet in diameter (3.048 m) now hangs in my local art museum, the Currier Museum of Art.

As soon as I found out it was there, (or more to the point, here),

I went over to check it out in person. I was not disappointed. 

So what does this have to do with quiltmaking, aside from the fact that I'm always harping on you to get out to your local art museum regularly and look around?

Go on over to the sidebar and read the "About Me" section. Notice how I write "I love working with abstract shapes and color," and "I love the graphic quality of quilts." Now go back and look at Sinjerli, Variation 1 (the painting).

Yeah.

Because I am always interested in how we get from A to B, I wondered if what it is I like best about quilts was directly influenced by Frank Stella's paintings, since I didn't start making quilts until 1977.

That's a very interesting idea. I am going to have to think about it.

Ideas & Inspiration

I spent some time at The Currier Museum of Art yesterday. It's free on Saturday mornings. I strongly urge you to take advantage of your local art museum as often as you can. I didn't go for anything in particular, but I did see this, (sorry it is out of focus), an inlay in a wooden desk. It's less than 2" wide in real life, so these light and dark areas are tiny.

I thought it would make an outstanding border on a quilt.

Speaking of quilts, look at this,

It is a part of one "block" of a metal "quilt" made by a local artist, Anne Marie Kenny. I love the inconguous use of materials - the needles, the metal screen and the computer circuit boards.

It's so important to get out and look around. It keeps your brain from getting musty and stale.

More Color

I made all the letters for the word PERSIMMON, but haven't sewn them together yet. My brother from Colorado is visiting this week. I haven't seen him in six years.He's a fine furniture maker, and we spent part of yesterday at the Currier, looking at their early American furniture, as well as some modern pieces. Afterward, we went on a tour of the Zimmerman House, a Usonian house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.Later, we went out to dinner, and had lobster and fried clams. It was a pretty good day!