Meeting the Challenge exhibition in New Zealand

Four lucky latitude members were invited to put together an exhibition which included our 8 challenges so far, and some larger works that represent our own styles and which enhanced the range presented. They were myself, Julia, Deborah, Margy and Linden. Unfortunately it was too far for the others to attend the opening.

The exhibition opened on the 4th May in the Chamber Gallery, Rangiora Library, and runs until the 4th June. The Chamber is a historic (for New Zealand) council chamber room which has been incorporated into the newer library building, and is accessed from the library. It has exhibitions for a month at a time throughout the year, mostly local artists in a variety of media. The ones preceding ours this year included paper sculpted wall art, monoprints and 3 D wire weavings, and humorous acrylic paintings and drawings.

I was thrilled at the way the exhibition looked. The challenge quilts are hung in their groups of four on the two longer walls, while the larger works are on the wall facing you as you enter from the libary and its opposite wall. They are well lit with spotlights, although that makes photography more difficult. The reception from those invited to the opening was positive and the overall feeling is a happy and vibrant collection of works which repay detailed examination. Some, but not all, of the viewers had some prior knowledge of textile art, and the others were amazed at the technical skills shown.

I have had works on display at quilt shows in the past, both juried and unjuried. But this is the first time I have been a quarter of a dedicated exhibition in an art gallery. It did take a bit of organisation to get the works here, measured, wall plans done, and labelling and programming agreed with the chairman of the Art Council.

This is something I would encourage  - it is a huge validation of our art as art and not a craft, even though we need our craft skills as well.

Once you have assembled an exhibition, it really is almost no extra work to send it on to other venues, and I wish that I had thought of that before.

Here are a couple of photos.

The rest can be seen on my Dropbox folder which you can access here