Discoveries

With Ann Rebele in front of her piece at Quilt National

It's been more than a week since I returned from Quilt National's opening weekend in Athens. As always, it was fun to see old friends, and meet some artists whose work I know, but whom I had never never met in person. Over the years serving as curator for the Firelands Association for the Visual Art's The Artist as Quiltmaker, I had the chance to see so much beautiful artwork, and to correspond with hundreds of artists. I made new friends over the years at the openings, such as meeting Terry Jarrard Dimond, Ann Rebele, Nancy Condon, or Denise Mucci Furnish, among many others. I had yet to meet Wen Redmond, however, and have followed her work through the years. At Quilt National this year, Wen's piece was a show-stopper, so I was especially pleased to finally meet her.

Gillian greeted us like queens

We arrived, and were met by our hostess with a spread fit for queens, homemade scones and tea. We had the strawberry-rhubarb pie I had brought along for breakfast on Saturday morning, then headed over to the Quilt National artist's preview and gallery talk.

Nancy Condon with her Quilt National piece in the background

We met our hosts for lunch on Saturday, then went to see Quiltzilla, a fun store front at the mall promoting art in public places. We met up there with our tArts (a Cleveland area textile group) friend Christy, who was in town for the weekend.


tArt friends Po and Razzy in front of the Quiltzilla dinosaur

 On the way home Sunday morning, we stopped in Lancaster to visit Michael Mrowka and Debra Lunn at Lunn Fabrics. Although they were packing for return to the Kaufman fabric offices in Indonesia, there was still plenty of unbelievably beautiful fabric out on the shelves. They had also recently redone their floors using their fabrics. Wow, what a creative solution!

Michael shows off the new floors at Lunn Fabrics