Living Black History

It was a weekend filled with the quilts and quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama!  In the picture is GB quilter Lucy Mingo, 2nd from the left, with (from L-R) my Aunt Shirley, my Mama, and Aunt Francis.  I managed to make a small exclusive gathering of a gallery talk with 3 of the quilters and I dragged Petra, a non-quilting friend, along to meet living history...Petra lives under a rock and only heard about the quilters about 2 weeks ago.  Then Saturday my mother, sister, 2 of my aunts, and myself attended the demonstration and exhibit.  The quilters worked on 2 quilts...one a blue, white, and black one with bold graphic lines and shapes and a blue jean quilt.  We were there for a couple of hours and just had a great time.  Sunday morning I rolled out of bed early (for me) and made it to church were the group of women I quilt with hosted the quilters for service and they were recognized before the congregation and we hosted the reception afterwards before they where whisked off back to the museum.  I felt like such a groupie and I guess I am because I was lifted by the interaction I had with them and hopefully in the next couple of years will make a trek to their homestead. For more photos, click  here.

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I wish I had a better photo of Ron accepting an award for one of his pieces in the show at Actor's Theatre but I just couldn't capture a good one...Ron is smack in the middle of the photo with his back turned.  He is building his resume and me thinks it is time that he builds a professional website.  I'm praying that his pieces sell before they come down from this particular exhibit.  He is also the featured artist at a coffee shop in Lexington, KY...I think the name of the place is Third Street Stuff Cafe.  He is also the featured artist at Southeast Kentucky Community College in Harlan County, Kentucky through the end of Feb.

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For the last month or so I've been looking at studio spaces...The 2 that excited me the most are out of my price range but I had hoped to share 1 of the spaces with a hand embroiderer but that didn't pan out.  I ran into another artist today who may possibly be interested and I waited to look at another space today that is doable alone but the person showing the space didn't show up at the time designated. All the looking and searching and hoping has opened an opportunity to set up a table to sell on the first Friday Trolley Hop free of charge.  If I do this it will be after April because my initial reaction felt like this would be a distraction.  Being the slow thinker that I am, I just need to ponder it some more. The remainder of this week is dedicated to resting.  Maybe I shouldn't say that too loud just in case drama and chaos are listening. :)