My mom has been making an annual pilgrimage to the Marin Needle Arts Guild quilt show for years, and since 2001 my wife has been accompanying her. Last year I tagged along with them at the 2005 Marin quilt show. There were hundreds of quilts, many of them beautiful and inspirational, and we had a great time at the show. I couldn’t attend this year, but my mom and my wife encouraged our youngest daughter to attend her first quilt show. After spending two hours driving to San Rafael and $7 each for tickets, they walked into the exhibit hall and saw…
About twenty quilts.
Apparently this year the MNAG threw in the towel and let some scammers run a “quilt festival” at the same venue and weekend that the Marin quilt show has traditionally been held for the past 27 years. To be completely fair, there were some traveling exhibit quilts and vendors’ display quilts being shown. But there were only ~20 “personal” quilts on display this year, compared to hundreds in prior years. Basically, my mom, wife, and daughter ended up blowing four hours driving plus gasoline plus admission, with the expectation of seeing a fabulous quilt show; instead, all they got to see was a bunch of vendors hawking their wares. What a total let-down!
I’m posting this in the hope that some other unsuspecting folks won’t fall victim.
On Saturday my wife and I took my mom to the Marin Quilt Show in San Rafael (Marin County), California. One of the highlights of this show (for me) of is the venue–it’s right across the pond from the Marin Civic Center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
(another view)
The featured artist this year was Julie Hirota, especially apropos because her quilting specialty is “art glass”, a medium at which Frank Lloyd Wright excelled. All the work that she had on display was attractive, but the piece that inspired me was “Queen of Hearts”
I don’t think I’ll duplicate this piece. I’d rather take the idea and apply the techniques to another subject–perhaps a book cover?
The most impressive quilt I saw this year was a carousel horse. I didn’t note the artist’s name, but I may be able to find it later. The front of the quilt showed “love of craft” and was well-executed, but this isn’t something I would normally like; however, the back of this quilt was incredible!
The plain black backing combined with the bright threads used for quilting this piece was extremely bold. It seems to shout, “Check out my quilting prowess!”, rightfully so. Only a master quilter could pull off something like this. Well done, and bonus points for chutzpah!
The show seemed a little “off” this year–fewer quilts, fewer visitors, a couple of vendors that regularly attend were missing. I’m not sure if this was due to the price of fuel, or perhaps because ticket prices have risen a bit, or something else. It was still an excellent show, and I’ll be coming back next year.
