Saturday, September 15, 2012

Mermaids and Merwoman in Black Folklore: A Fibert Art Exhibit

Well I am back from the Artist Reception and our little vacation to Charleston and Savannah.

Oh was it a wonderful experience.  First I want to say Thank You to Torreah "Cookie" Washington, for letting me participate in such a wonderful exhibit, full of magnificent quilts and dolls, made by some very talented artists!  Second, I want to Thank Donna Chambers, who pushed me to get my piece done and submitted by the deadline.

But, I must say, the exhibit was AWESOME!  There were 109 pieces of art, made by over 70 fiber artists.  I took tons of pictures and have them all loaded on Shutterfy.  I will post a few here, but if you are interested in seeing all 82 pics, you can try this link...  http://mermaidexhibit.shutterfly.com/pictures#n_5.  Not sure if it will work, if not, just post a comment with your email address and I will add you to the share site.

Besides the quilts and dolls, there were 18 poets who wrote new, original poems on the same theme for the exhibit.  All the quilts, dolls and poems are included in the book, "Black Mermaids in Vision and Verse", edited and conceived by Torreah "Cookie" Washington.  The book includes both pictures and artist statements of all the quilts and dolls in the show.  This is the first time a compilation of poems, quilts and dolls has ever been published for a gallery exhibit.  And to think, my work is included!!  So exciting :-)....

Here is the piece I submitted...  the Pelham Quilters Round Robin quilt that I did the last round on and then quilted.  I submitted it under all 3 names:  Donna Chambers, Doris Green and myself..

 I posted close ups of the piece in my last post.

Here is a picture of my friends, Donna's submission.  Tell me it isn't awesome :-)...





















These two were also done by NY quilters, although the artists were from all over the country.


This piece by Bianca, is exquisite.  It is mostly painted, but look closely at her mermaids tails.  They are real fish scales that she got from the fish market and then cleaned and glued each scale on one by one....




Doesn't it look like her hand is coming right out of the quilt top?  ..






Wow.. is all I can say....
















Look at the fierceness in this mermaids eyes....  don't mess with those souls :-).


I have decided to make an effort to learn how to do faces after this exhibit.  So many of the quilters had such strong emotion in their pieces, all expressed through the facial characteristics.













And I have to share with you some of the dolls that were made.  The details....







I was truly amazed that you can ask 50 artists to submit their work around a single theme and end up with over 100 pieces that were all so different.  Each artist interpreted the theme as individuals and the result was one FABULOUS show.

If you want to see the exhibit for yourself, it is open until October 28th at The City Gallery at Waterfront Park, Charleston, South Carolina.

Hope you get a chance to see it....

I know you will enjoy it!!

Renee

2 comments:

rocky g said...

Hello is it possible to see the pieces of the exhibit anywhere? I am doing research on black women artists and would also love to even interview some of tge artists.

Renee said...

Hi Rocky G... please send me a message at quiltedartistry@gmail.com, with a little background on yourself and the info you would like, besides the photos and names you see here in this post. There are other albums, but since your blogger profile has no information at all, I will need some additional info before I add you as a member to those groups. Thanks for your interest in this body of work! Renee