Rooted - the show just hung

Here is the amazing map of Meredith's, the game plan to beat all game plans. With pre-planning like this, hanging a show becomes a cinch.

We are just tidying up. The labels and lighting haven't been done yet. I am not giving you the artist's names under each photo. Mostly because that is the sort of thing I always get wrong but it also means it gives you teaser. Go in and see who it is that you admire so much.

One of the Mary Black Gallery's several challenges are the huge windows. The glass isn't clear, so the artifacts are damaged by light, but that equally means the public can't see in too well.

Not only do we look at size for placement, we also look at colour palettes and in this case, a group with strong perimeter edges and some internal relationships.

A bit of a colour pop on one side of the center of the longest wall.....


to neutral colours with strong images to.....

some more colour pops. A touch of the abstract and a return to story. Then we turn the corner and.....

the back wall, full of story. Visually, we have missed the back corner and a group of 4 suspended from the ceiling, but the site lines for the camera were too cramped. The site lines for the viewer are good though.

The second back corner, again with some thematic content that relate to each other.

And we complete the circuit with a conclusion of graphic strength, one abstract in it's depiction of two poems and the other iconic.

This gives you the position of the 4 hanging pieces. Had the lighting been done, it would have been worth photographing but as you can see, this very bright, strong piece is lost in a shadow. By opening night, it was sublime. An accidental moment of interest is the relationship between the strong edges of the near by quilt and the soft, undulations of the abstract quilt in the background. Similar colour palette, no thematic relationship, but a fun juxtaposition.

And then there is the fabulous me. One thing I truly understand now is how difficult it is to photograph sheer textiles. The orange is a strong pumpkin colour, but here, it's more like colour of the bathtub mold you get after a while in the grout. Let's not discuss that further.

You can see back into the show. It gives you a sense of what I was trying to play with, transparency, layers and details.

The lighting on this was great, the camera was smiling and yet.... ook. The photo doesn't do the piece justice, background is a yummy dark brown. Another reason to trot on into the show and see what is really going on. I love it's position in the show, with the background buildings. It is just like the view I tried to capture, looking through the spring leaves of the linden tree outside my bedroom window.

The roundy bits are the flowers of the tree. The square bits are the leaves. A small hint of the bark. There is something interesting to see in each piece. Be sure to have a look.

Hanging a show

These photos show Meredith and I hanging the show Rooted, at the Mary Black Gallery, 1061 Marginal Road, Halifax. The show opens Friday April 20th and runs to June 10th, all in 2012.

The piece I didn't get photographed is the map Meredith makes every time we hang a show. She manages to get colour images of each item to be hung, then draws a detailed floor plan with measurements she has taken herself. She does not pay attention to the floor plan provided by a gallery, they are often wrong. She notes where ugly things are that can't be avoided, such as fire hydrants and thermometers.

Then Meredith cuts up her tiny images and places them around the floor plan until the colours all look terrific and hopefully the measurements work out. Knowing Meredith, it takes more than one session. It all gets taped into the map and boom, we have a game plan.

To top it all off, there are colour images of each piece with the artist's name and measurements that we cut up into individual pieces. These get taped to the wall according to the game plan. We walk around the room several times deciding focal points, if ugly things are too close to artifacts, what kinds of plinths we might need, where the labels will go in case they cause an intrusion and what the flow of traffic will be like, remembering the need for fire escapes and wheel chair access.

From these small images, we toss half the decisions out the window, shift a few things here and there (for the first time but not the last time)

and place the actual artifacts on the floor on drop cloths.

Then we start to hang things on the wall and the ceiling.

Meredith and I have been hanging shows of one sort or another for close to 13 years now. We have yet to get annoyed with each other, or fling nails in each other's direction. I don't know why we work so well together, but we do. It is a pleasure to hang a show with Meredith and we laugh a lot as we exhaust ourselves.

We've spent nearly 10 hours on this so far over two days and tomorrow we go in to hang the remaining 4 quilts. These 4 require climbing up the huge yellow ladder in the first photo and we were just too tired to attempt it today. The person doing the lights will have been in and many of the labels placed. We will tweak quilts to make sure they are level and the shadows aren't tricking us and then we will turn up on Friday for the opening, ready to pat ourselves on the backs for another show well hung.

Mahone Bay Quilter's Guild, thank you

The Mahone Bay Quilter's Guild has just finished setting up their new blog pages. It is a nice site and worth a visit especially if you quilt. (see the link on the right bottom of this page) There are links to some interesting quilter/textile artists who are pretty engaged in the world.

Strangely, it slipped my mind to mention my quilting. It is a major part of my life and yet, I took it for granted. Quilting has to be one of the most sustainable activities I do. Perhaps the buying of too much fabric or more than one sewing machine or traveling to buy the too much fabric are practices that could stand examination, but it is the community of quilters that makes this one of the most important, sustainable things in my life.

Before we were married, I took up quilting. That's nearly 30 years ago.
We went to a cottage on Skeleton Lake, Ontario, and as usual, for every pound of luggage and food, there were two pounds of books to be carted in an open run-about that took us across the lake. I had several quilt books and read them cover to cover. I designed about 20 quilts that week even though I was nowhere near a piece of fabric.

Back at home, I started my first quilt. (green one) Then kids came along, and I made them each a crib quilt using cast off clothing because we were broke. Phoebe's quilt (red one) is made partially from a textile that wrapped a borrowed christening dress when she was three. This was all done on my own, without another quilter for miles, I thought.

We moved to the other end of Toronto and I found the West End Toronto Quilter's Guild, found a community of women, eventually had a part time job in a quilting shop, learned how to really quilt and sew (but I never did get excited about using pins or rulers) and then we moved to Nova Scotia.

Here I was quickly drawn into the Mayflower Quilter's Guild and from that start, when about 50 or so people gathered at the Bloomfield Community Centre, I met several women who have been the back bone of my sanity here in Nova Scotia. I met Meredith, who one day showed up with a bunch of Mayflower flowers as a welcoming gift. She lives down the road and we have supported each other over the years on a wide variety of issues. I met Jamie who used to live down the street from me in Toronto but we didn't know it at the time and she is now one of a small group of women who I meet with weekly. Barb R. who is probably the best known quilter in Nova Scotia. She organizes the Mayflower Retreat (another sanctuary for women who need a break from family), and works endlessly on behalf of quilting. I met Ruth who is gracious beyond description. Eventually I bumped into Linda who is an amazingly gifted quilter, one of my weekly group members plus she drives. Gradually, I built up a network of women friends who are truly friends.
This catalogue cover from "Talking Threads" is from a quilt exhibition at the Mary Black Gallery that 10 of us undertook, some time ago now.

You know how you sometimes get to be chums with other women because they have kids in the same school, or you are going to the same classes or jobs with them, or they live down the street. These are friendly friends, people who have something in common, who understand that the wheels of society move on through civil and congenial behaviour. A true and real friend is someone who you have more than one thing in common with, someone who can stand your weird bits and someone whose weird bits you can stand. A true friend is someone who joins you when life is good and who stands by, sometimes in the shadows, when life is bad.
My weekly group made this quilt as a group effort and sold it to pay for a group trip away. It was good fun.

Just last week, two quilting friends and I were asked to help sort out the sewing areas of my friend Jane, who died 8 months ago. I still miss Jane, sometimes so much I find myself crying about it. Jane who laughed, who had a wicked sense of humour, who had little time for fools but managed to never make that fool feel like one, who brought a quality of joy into my life. Jane didn't quilt for as many years, but her work is witty and beautifully made. We sorted through so many spools of thread, we packed up tons of bits of fabric and notions, we looked at the fabric stash that has yet to be sorted out and we talked with her husband about photos he showed us of when Jane was young and vibrant. I wept in the car home and my two friends didn't judge me. They let me cry and work through my grief. I am thankful for that kindness.
(our annual Christmas eat good food and exchange books event)

Over and over again, I am the recipient of kindness, joy, humour, trying times and patience testers from my world of women friends. Some days I could hide in a closet and not come out, but when I see the work that women like Barb R. do to keep us all connected and engaged, I am deeply grateful. Because it is so hard to go through life outside of community. We need the noise and the irritation of a crowd to give us texture, to measure our choices against, to make sure our values are on track or if they aren't on track with others, are they values that we can bring back to our community (I'm thinking local diet here ladies) and we need community because inside of it, despite its flaws, we need the several people who hold our hearts in their hearts and give us love.

You'll want a cup of tea.

It has been silent in the land of Laureen's blog, in case you haven't noticed.

The reason is this!



Cheryl and I had a huge deadline to get this to the Artistic Committee at The Theatre Arts Guild (TAG) by February 8th and by golly gosh we did it. I don't want to talk about it too much, in case there really are jinxing pixies out there. Yes, the evil witch is reaAAALLLY evil and reaAAALLLY hungry. We have a marvelous dame with a bosom a mile wide and long, who manages to fall in love with a stinky bear and still save the day and of course, we have Hansel and Gretel with their parents. They are there mostly to give the Evil Auwfulla and the Dame (Sugar Plump Fairy) a reason to be on stage. Cheryl and I are planning a reading through workshop next week with folks who aren't likely to want to act in the play but who can give us good feed back on pacing and if we've goofed up anywhere. I will keep you posted.

February 8th was a few days back now and you'd think I would have sat right down to write you all a letter but I was immediately thrown into crisis in Volunteer land and unhealthy kitty land. What happens in the Board room stays in the Board room, but holy Hannah, what a lot of meetings. So the blog flew out the window. The cat has gingivitis and while his breath smells like a stinky raccoon died in the garbage can that is a month old, he's fine. If you stay a long distance away from him. He's off for dental surgery next week and that's a whole other story mama.


That doesn't mean I wasn't thinking of things.



Like this. Is that not a fabulous image of women? It's from Threads Magazine, feb/March '99, drawing by Christine Erikson. Consider it a non-sequitur.

I was also distracted by my brother Vincent's life accomplishment.



I came across an idea about what the hell is Urban Farming anyways – too much time needed to research so it will have to wait; the Knitting Olympics – see the Yarn Harlot site or Ravelry site and this seems cool. I am considering participating but also wonder if it wouldn't be simpler to embed a hatchet in my forehead. I have also been thinking on the nature of friendship and decided that's where I'll head today.

Do you remember your first true friend? I think I found my first true friend in my 40's, not including Steve, who is the best friend of all. How can I not include Steve, since he taught me what being a friend is all about and continues to be the bestest of all. But I was thinking more of women friends. Maybe that's limiting the thought process, but these days, it's good to keep things simple or the brain melts.

I recall friends from childhood and being intensely convinced that these were the kindred spirits that would inform my life until eternity passed. I had read “Anne of Green Gables” many times, along with a few British novels about boarding school friends and loyalty. Boy, a good story can still lead a gal astray. I was always upset when the family moved and over time, I had to reconcile my ideas of true friendship with the nature of middle class mobility. Perhaps these other young girls weren't aware of their duties, but there weren't any sobbing letters or phonecalls claiming undying affection once the moving van had left and the icecream cones (bribes to get in the car) were finished.

There were always the girls at school, but those were mostly friendship of proximity and convenience and that was the pattern for the next 30 years or so. Who lived close by, who had a cuter older brother, who had a baseball and baseball bat (see cuter older brother) and then, who in my class wasn't a complete bore, or who had a car to drive to and from parties, or who had a house where parties could take place. Then in University, things became more sophisticated. Who wasn't a complete bore (never realizing it could have been me), who had a car to drive to Toronto from Waterloo, and who had a room I could rent the next term. Work and do I need to repeat myself? Babies and a slight variation, who was as bored as I was and willing to admit it, who had a wagon to drag the kids to and from the park, who was likely to have a party my kids would be invited to? Certain shallowness pervades this paragraph doesn't it?

I had a few good chums along the way, Barb in University, who was a great room mate and is still a buddy, but 2000 miles away, Susan in Toronto, but she is a terrible writer and that 2000 miles does get in the way and Mimi who often lives half a world away and makes Susan's writing look manic. As the moving around didn't seem to be ending, I was always hesitant to invest myself in anything too thoughtful. Being a giddy and foolish creature, I was always connected to people and events, looking to have an engaging time. Except for with Steve, who is a powerful brain on legs, there wasn't much depth to any conversation or relationship. I also realized that other women would pack up and move just as quickly as I did, if it meant something better for their families. Friends weren't on the list of reasons to not move.

Halifax and my 40's and a certain convincement that priorities and values that are important to me are allowed to be important in decision making in the family. And with that, confidence came that gave me permission to take a chance on building real friendships and hoping that they would last. I have been very, very, very lucky in Halifax. I have 8 great lady friends, they are all close by, they are all unlikely to move willy nilly, and best of all, they all seem to genuinely like me back. Jamie, am I allowed to name everybody? Thanks. Here ladies, you are named: Linda, Jane, Barb, Alex, Catherine, Jamie, Cheryl and Sandy. What a gift you all are!

Amongst and between those nine women friends, I met and found a flock of other women who are connected to me by our mutual love of textiles, art, music, good conversation and laughing. One of the women's partners called us the Quilt Mafia and here we are, gathered for a day of show and tell and food in Mahone Bay.





The group has grown since the smaller mafia began, as all good illicit things do. Some of us make dolls, some quilt, some focus on the surface of textiles and some of us like to knit while chatting so as to focus on the very important moments of sharing.

What is the nature of friendship? After all these years, I have discovered it really isn't based on convenience. I knew that, but going beyond it was too risky. We fall into this trap through work, or through our kid's schools or sports or who lives in the neighbourhood. Real friendship is based on a mutual respect and love for something that connects us. It is based on a willingness to take a risk and be honest with our affections and our trust that the other person will have enough affection for us that our ugly bits will go “unnoticed” until we can reign them in again. It is mostly based on a willingness to stick our necks out to give to others a part of our hearts and to be willing to accept what is given back, even if sometimes it is a bit rough around the edges.

Having moved much too often, I think “being” where you live is another ingredient. I know there will be moves in the future for my friends but one of our family decisions is to stay where friends are. Community can happen anywhere, but friends are rare and worth the stay.

Group hug!