Kimono Show & Craft Boston in One Weekend

This was an art filled weekend for us.  Saturday afternoon was the opening reception for Tea, Swords and Stitches at the Brush Gallery in downtown Lowell.  The exhibit, subtitled Contemporary Interpretation of Traditional Japanese Arts, features kimonos, kimono accessories, netsuke, and embroidery.  Sonja and I created a kimono for this exhibit and it was thrilling to see it hung.  The turn out for the opening was fantastic and we received so many compliments on our work, it was a real high for me.  It was especially rewarding for me because I had felt so intimidated when we were first asked to participate and heard about all the other who would also be showing work.  In the end I felt we acquitted ourselves well and we were proud of what we accomplished.  It is such a joy for me to work with Sonja.  She has been blogging about the kimono project so you can see pictures and read more about it there:  Art-Textilian Blog

On Sunday we went to Craft Boston at the World Trade Center on the waterfront.  There was so much splendid and innovative work there it was almost overwhelming.  We were definitely tired by the time we got home.   One reason for going this time, was that I have considering whether participating in a future Craft Boston should be a goal for me.  So besides just enjoying the works, I was trying to figure out just what it would take to achieve that--how much work would I have to produce, what display materials would I need, would my work fit it well, does it seem to be of comparable quality to the current participants, and so forth.  It is hard to know because so much of what I see is really production work--beautiful and creative--but designed by one person and made by others with the same item available in multiple sizes.  That's not the direction I want to go in.  There was at least one wearable fiber artist who did do truly one-of-a-kind work though, so it is not out of the question for me to try for it.

One of the other artists here at Western Avenue Studios participated in Craft Boston this year--Tarja Cockell, a weaver.  It was her first time for it.  She has been encouraging me and sharing lots of tips.  It is a great benefit of having a studio here--the wealth of information and support available.

Well it is time to get back to my current jacket project.  One thing I did learn this weekend is that I need to produce many more jackets if I even want to consider trying something like this.  So I better get busy.