I’ve done Quilt Shows. I’m not that into them.

However, the past month has been very work intensive and while that’s actually a good thing, it meant that there wasn’t the balance of work and creativity that I strive for.

I replied, “okay, I’m game.”

Little did I know.

Tuesday morning I was skimming RSS feeds and saw a post from the MS Crafts Dept. blog about the show. This made me pause, it was full of Red? and White? Two colours I very much dislike? Well, I was still open minded enough to give it a go.

So, while I began to click around and hear more favourable buzz about this … quilt show, I still was not prepared.

Wow.

I’ve been in the Park Avenue Armory building before. E and I went to an antique book sale a few years ago. It was just a generic space with lots of booths and tables. I expected something similar.

A and I opened the large doors, walked in, and then stopped short.

Why?

We saw this:

I can’t find the right words to describe it. I think A reminded me to close my mouth because my jaw was hanging open. I started to have to remind myself to blink.

I had left my camera at home and had to rely on my (very good) camera phone. Can you sense the wonder? The scale? The beauty? The amazing curation of the materials by Elizabeth V. Warren, guest curator?

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole exhibit and what I learned from it.

I’m inspired by it in many many ways, most of them unexpected.

I’m touched by the generous gift Joanna Rose gave NYC for her 80th birthday.

I need more time to process it and find a way to explain. I’m sorry to tell you about an awesome show that is now closed. I think there is talk of it travelling to other places.

I can, however, with clarity say this now: If there is any chance it opens elsewhere and you have the remotest possibility in the world of getting there to go see it, GO.

You can see others photos of the amazing installation through the flickr tag 650quilts. Here is more information from the Folk Art Museum.

Thank you A for inviting me!

(nb: I know that the click through information in the description is erroneous. Fixing it requires a bit of brain power and I’m looking forward to some quiet first… )
image is © DEG, All Rights Reserved.

(please click to find a larger image if you so desire)

Governor’s Island

A different view of the Verrazano than I am used to, living on the other side. :)

“Sunflower” detail … this made me giggle uncontrollably for a good 5 minutes. This is in a *FORT*!!

(regular posting will occur after 09 May)

Moving on, this afternoon I took advantage of my husband’s corporate discount perks to visit two amazing exhibits at MoMA: Color Chart and Design and the Elastic Mind.

I’ll start with Color Chart (sorry, site is in Flash). Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time at Knitty City not creating, but wandering around the store complaining to everyone that I was looking for inspiration. I should have stopped by MoMA instead.. the Color Chart exhibit wasn’t as inspiring as I hoped, but something about the white walls and the squares of colour by artists such as Frank Stella, Gerhard Richter, François Morellet, Sherrie Levine, and Sol LeWitt among others has left me thinking beyond my normal limited colour choices…

Yet Design and the Elastic Mind was exactly the push toward inspiration I was desperately seeking. Some of the items I had seen before (one example), however, many I had not. Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny’s “Honeycomb Vase” is stunning. A NYT review of the exhibit may be found here.

If you have the opportunity I urge you to visit both exhibits. Yes, you can see much of it online, but the experience of seeing all of this innovation organized together left my senses excited.

As a last minute decision, last night I decided to stop by Stephanie’s talk as it really was on my way home. I missed her talk [I'm trying to convince E to drive me up to Webs on the 27th] but arrived in time to get my book signed and see some people, but not everyone I was looking for. I wasn’t really with it as I had a long day and didn’t really /talk/ at all with her when it was actually my turn. Spot kept jumping out of my bag at every opportunity and was constantly muttering something about sock yarn and lace, even though he and I have discussed the contents of my stash and my time commitments for the next few weeks. Sometimes I don’t know what gets into him. I think it’s PG being a bad influence. In any case, I really love these types of events because the community of knitters always inspires me and I make new friends (and push at least ONE person to write a public journal. Last year it was A, this year it’s (hopefully) E. I’m very happy to see both on wordpress). I was sitting in a chair introducing myself to E and hopefully not leaving the impression that I’m completely insane and waiting so I didn’t jump the entire line when a woman and her friend walked by and stopped to compliment the Wrap (Actually, everyone did; I’ve never had so many compliments on a piece of knitting before. Thank you everyone!). I spoke a bit about it and she suddenly asks, “Are you Penny?”. To which I replied at the same time she said, “Melanie!”. It was so wonderful to meet her in real space.. she was there with her friend T who has been her penpal for many years and they finally met in real person as well. I had a wonderful bit of tea with them after getting my book signed and we actually succeeded in crossing paths at MoMA this afternoon.

Lastly, my mum bought a new car. This pleases me as her Corolla is almost 15 years old and the back doors no longer consistently open (or one no longer did and sometimes the other sticks?). The Corolla was a good car, it drove me (I rarely drove it) all over while I was in high school, making weekly trips across the length of the Island for orchestra rehearsals and at least two trips a summer (more like three or four) up to Oneonta for music “camp”. Please say hello to Snowflake (the car). May they enjoy their time together in health and safety. A has a new white scion too, his is the bigger boxy one and I don’t know if it has been named (helicopter taxi might be appropriate). If the weather is ever not grey hopefully we’ll get a photo of the two together. :)

As it pulled into the station (with a sizeable crowd waiting on the platform) I attempted to photograph it and failed miserably. E suddenly stepped back and I heard unhappy language escaping his lips. Apparently his battery did not properly charge so I must torture you with my terrible photos.

It was kinda fun but I guess the hustle and bustle of a weekend day in NYC in December got to me. I did enjoy the padding on the seat, for two reasons. First, those plastic seats are quite cold on dark winter mornings, secondly is that I don’t have much padding so any little bit makes me happy.

Many of the advertisements made me smile… I find the germs one quite timely. Yuck.

This is why PG is mad at me. I left her home and she isn’t very happy about it and keeps trying (along with Work) to make sure I don’t complete my final project (due tomorrow). *sigh*