Today, I’m blogging from a restaurant newly located inside the Hilton. It’s a Texas chain called Pappasito’s Cantina.

Food plus free internet is my new MO.

Yesterday started with an ephinany class. Yes. I had an AHHA moment thanks to Suzie Monday and her class Your Brain on Creativity. For years, I’ve wanted to make paper collages, but for some reason, I never gave my self the time or permission to do so. I’m really not interested in making fabric collage, but, who knows, that could change. What I really want is to use found paper, cut it up, and glue it down.

And that is exactly what I got to do in Suzie’s class.

She lead us through a series of exercises meant to get us thinking about how we learn, what is meaningful to us, what our strongest memories are , what our history is and so on.

We were encouraged to fill an entire page with these ideas–using pencils, pen, paper, and fabric.

I went straight for the paper and began cutting. Part of me completely blacked during the process. I know that might sound weird, but it was actually really great.

I was so thrilled to be cutting and gluing; I can’t remember what Suzie asked us to do with the lower quadrants of the paper.

I know my work is very rudimentary, still I love it. I did it. I finished a collage.

I’m taking a second collage class on Saturday. I know it seems a bit strange to travel to the International Quilt Festival to play with paper, but sometimes it just happens like that.

As I mentioned yesterday, the center piece of this year’s exhibition space is a spectacular display of red and white quilts.

The signage explains the story behind the exhibit.

“This exhibit is inspired by the 2011 exhibit, Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts exhibited in New York at the Armory. Quilters have long used ruby (red) to show love, power, lust, strength, fire, death, and war. The addition of white was often used as a relief to the strong red. A selection of ruby and white quilts made from 1974 to the present, and a selection of read and white antique quilts makes a powerful statement as we celebrate our 40th anniversary as the largest quilt show sale and quiltmaking academy in the United States. “

I remember reading about the Armory exhibit. It is incredible to see a re-enactment of that show in person.

I hope you enjoy these images as much as I do.

I am partial to the traditional pieced patterns.

There is something so modern about two colored quilts.

I suppose it is the graphic POW of it all.

Every time I see a medallion quilt, I want to make one.

These quilts really bring me back to why I started down this road. They are art, and they are quilts.

The suspended quilts are AMAZING.

Okay. Tomorrow I will tell you about today.

In the meantime, I feel a bit like Hunter S. Thompson in Las Vegas.

Perhaps it is the tequila.

31 Oct This entry was published on October 31, 2014 at 3:21 PM. It’s filed under Just Plain Stories, News And Events and tagged International Quilt Festival. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.