The tale of two shows

There are two shows I have been wanting to see. One of them was the Ohio Designer Craftsman Best of 2009 which is showing at the Wooster Art Center in Wooster, Ohio until December 19. It opened in Columbus in June and has traveled the state, stopping in Portsmouth and Mansfield on its way to Wooster. It has a wide variety of media; jewelry, pottery, textiles, glass, woodworking, and paper. It's a wonderful show because of the variety. Additionally there is a great variety of textiles, Susie Shie's diary quilt, Sue Cavanaugh's shibori, Rumana Hawa's weaving and Rita Steffenson marvelous thread work among others. Sue is in the Quilt National exhibit that is traveling the US currently. I went on a Wednesday afternoon, all was quiet but the show was in 2 rooms that were warmly lit. I was inspired but some of the fabulous jewelry. Some very conceptual pieces.

Saturday I went to see Nancy Crow's Solo exhibit at the Howland branch of the Butler Institute of America. The show is open until January 10, 2010. Surprisingly there were no visitors on  a Saturday afternoon. I was able to examine all the quilts at close and far range. The show left me a little depressed and puzzled. The quilts had titles such as Anxiety, Yes, No, Maybe. Nancy describes her angst as she ponders a 1/4 of an inch placement of stripes that would change the composition. I was really interested in her whole cloth screen printed and monoprinted quilts. They were great, but the dates of the pieces were smack in the middle of all the strip pieced quilts. It seems she led us somewhere and then dropped the story we hoped to learn. Hopefully there is more screenprinting. Of course, this just my take. Sad, there were no viewers on a decent weather-wise weekend afternoon.

The quilt above is my One Windy Day which is traveling with the Best of Ohio Show.