4/30/07
Yesterday I drove up to Clarksville, which is just on the southern edge of Columbia (Doug from Cali, Columbia visiting yesterday also), to attend a meeting of art quilters who want to start a critique group. What pretty countryside, rolling hills, cherry trees and dogwoods and lilacs and wisteria still in bloom. I want to go back and explore and just wander around and get lost.
Anyway, the meeting was held at one of women's house... big house, pool, looking over maybe 5 acres of land, rolling hills. Plus she had a studio, lined with bins of fabric and other things, all organized, and a big huge worktable in the middle. Sigh.
There were maybe 25 women there, quite an impressive turnout. We introduced ourselves and then went around and showed what work we had brought along. The organizer, Carole Shaw, I think -- I am SO bad with names -- had asked us to bring a couple of things along. I was surprised when one of the women picked me to show my work almost right off the bat. Maybe because I was all dressed in greens and turquoise, like Robin Hood?? Anyway, so I brought out my 2 little quilts, Porcupine and the latest encrustation, blue on pink, and passed them around. I got a lot of positive feedback on them.
Later one we started having a very interesting discussion about how we could do critique and what it meant and how it was not saying that you liked this or that; it was more about what were you trying to accomplish and did you succeed at it or not. The meeting had already been going on for 3 hours then and it was time to break up and go home, but I hope that the next meeting, maybe in June, we can pick up there and continue where we left off.
Today I an planning on going to the ArtDC show, last day at the Conv. Center downtown, a show of something like 80 galleries in the area. Carole Shaw had been, said she was somewhat disappointed in it in that there were only maybe 3 places with any kind of fiber, but that it was instructive in learning what we maybe have to do to get ourselves out there and into the gallery/art world and not be ghettoized as "quilters." It's too bad so many women call themselves "crafters" (at whatever they do) and also that so many don't put any real value on their work. I looked at Etsy yesterday and saw a woman selling her quite large quilts for $200. She doesn't do herself any favors, nor anyone else either. At the meeting, one of the first women to show her work started saying something deprecating about her work, and other women just jumped on her for doing that and said, Be positive, be great, think you're wonderful and your work is wonderul. Good for them!
Then I went to play tennis (match) with Susan and we kicked butt! 6-0, 6-0. Those other women were outclassed, I'm afraid.