TVCT meeting

Some photos of the events at the TVCT meeting on Saturday.

We had a time of feedback about our recent exhibition of Halfway Between at the Spring Knitting and Stitching show and then at the Needlework Archive. Interesting comments...most very positive.

Jane who has made our group quite a success especially with our exhibitions, is stepping down as Exhibitions Officer. She has a place at Kingston to do her MA in Fine Arts!

So I arranged for a 'printing session' where members were to bring in their favourite stamping/printing tool. Merete, who with Jane helped me to start the group, dyed a lovely piece of old damask tablecloth a mottled magenta colour.

I didn't get a before photo, but here is the result!

Most of the people there didn't know about the purpose. In fact Jane was busy getting photos for our blog, not realising she would be taking it home!
Thanks Jane for all you have done for our group!

For the afternoon, we had booked the Suitcase Collection from the Contemporary Quilt group. The theme is 'All in a Day's Work'. After everyone looked at the quilts and read the stories behind them, the different groups were given thick A3 paper and a page with thumbnail images of the work. Each group had a brief for selecting 10-15 pieces of work for a gallery (the A3 paper folded to make walls). I had photographed each of the 43 quilts in advance, so they could cut out the images for the quilts they selected.

The briefs they could choose from were...

Themes-
Domestic Work
Ethics/Political
Professional Work
Outside
Text
Looking Back/Past

Somehow I didn't think to get photos of all the groups! and forgot totally to get photos of their galleries. But here are a few of the groups deliberating over their choices.

When they had decided, we 'threw them a wobbly' by giving them an extra aspect to their brief.

They were told that the 'gallery owner' had decided to have them display artefacts which would go with their theme and the work they had chosen. So, they had to sketch something which would represent those artefacts.

So, for instance, one group had chosen a work which was about domestic chores and decided one artefact would be an ironing board.

Another group, whose theme was Outside, decided they would display a window in a frame. Many of the pieces they had chosen had windows in them. So, this would relate. But also the work would at times been seen through the window as people walked around the gallery, which would add another dimension to the exhibition.

I think everyone enjoyed the experience. and some mentioned that it gave them a different perspective about their own work which may have been declined from a show. They realised after this activity that often it was about how much space their was and/or whether their piece worked with the other selected work.

If you are interested in hiring the Suitcase Collection for your own group you can find out details on the CQ webpage All in a Day's Work. You don't have to do a curating exercise, you can just enjoy the work and the stories behind them!