The Queen and The Crown @ the Brooklyn Museum

Those who have enjoyed the Netflix series of The Crown, Season 4, and The Queen's Gambit, may wish to know more about the costumes. Currently, the Brooklyn Museum is staging a virtual show that allows visitors to see many of the costumes made for these productions, to view them in detail, and to access more information from the costume designers themselves.

To learn more, go to the exhibition website, which offers a link to a virtual exploration of the show. The link includes film clips featuring the various costumes, and a panel discussion with the designers.

I learned about this exhibition by reading Leanne Delap's article in a recent issue of The Kit, available here.

Hidden Pond Yarns

Many of us are especially focused on family at this time of year.  So please indulge me when I explain how very proud I am of my daughter, Katya. The busy mom of two little ones, Katya has long had an interest in knitting and a great eye for colour. When the pandemic began, she took the opportunity to open a home-based business, offering hand-dyed yarn. Hidden Pond Yarns is getting 5-star reviews!

Katya's gorgeous yarns are available through her Etsy site. Their rich colours have even re-kindled my own long-dormant interest in knitting.

Another project for Christmas giving

without hat

I discovered this charming doll pattern on line, and just had to knit it up for my granddaughter. A steep learning curve for me, but I persisted. I love her unruly hair. My daughter chose the colour palette and supplied me with her own hand-dyed yarn.

with hat

The pattern is available on-line from Mary Jane's Tearoom, along with knitting patterns for delightful teddies, elephants, rabbits and mice. The patterns are also carried by Ravelry and Etsy (just do a search for "Mary Jane's Tearoom".)

Quilt as Political Statement

AIDS Memorial Quilt panel, NAMES Project

This recent article in The Observer, by Karen Chernick, traces the history of quilts as political statement.

In Quilting as a Radical Act: An Exhibition Examines the Art Form's Revolutionary Impact, Chernick reviews a new exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art, titled Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change. 

While the common public perception of quilts and quilters is one of cozy domesticity, the reality is often different. This show gathers together over 30 quilts from the mid-19th century onward, revealing a long history of quilts made for social causes.

Quilts that comment on our current pandemic, and that pay tribute to its victims, are no doubt already in the making. 

"Creative Threads" @ BIG Arts, Sanibel Island

Thank you, Lynda, for sharing news of this 3-artist exhibition of art quilts, currently staged at BIG Arts Gallery, Sanibel Island, Florida. Featured is the fibre-based art of Sally Dutko, Bonnie Langenfeld, and Angela Scozzari.

While we can't teleport to Florida, we can enjoy the virtual version of this show.

Sally Dutko, Dots Without the Polka,
hand-dyed cottons, silk

I particularly enjoyed the larger pieces in the exhibition, one of which is shown above. The physical space of the gallery seems to favour the bigger, bolder works. No doubt the charms of the smaller pieces are appreciated by those seeing the show in person.

All in good fun

For me, one of the joys of being a grandmother is making things for the grandchildren.

Here is a recent project I've completed for my little grandson, whose nursery has been given a "hunting lodge" theme. 

I made the "stag head" from a pattern by Amie Scott, a Toronto-based pattern designer, who also offers clothing patterns. On her website are similar patterns for unicorns, bunnies and rhinos. Amusing, yes?

Artists Reinvent the Mask

 From The Guardian: 45 artists were asked to reinvent the mask. Here's the link.

Porcupine Fish, Liz Sexton

Beak, Elizabeth Morisette

Breathing Apparatus, Adrienne DeLoe

Vogue Magazine celebrates patchwork

Recently published by Vogue, an amazing photo essay about patchwork on the runway. Catch it here.

Dolce & Gabbana,
spring 2020 ready-to-wear

Riopelle at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: virtual show

Point de rencontre – Quintette, 1963,
the largest painting Jean-Paul Riopelle ever made,
displayed prominently at the entrance to the exhibition.
Commissioned for Toronto's Pearson airport, 
it was later gifted to France to mark the bicentennial 
of the French Revolution.

The MMFA offers us a virtual tour of its most recent exhibition, "Riopelle: The Call of Northern Landscapes and Indigenous Cultures", available at no cost until January 11. During this period, while the galleries are closed, other shows can be viewed at the same link:

• Paris in the Days of Post-Impressionism: Signac and the Indépendents,
• Yehouda Chaki: Mi Makir – A Search for the Missing, and
• Manuel Mathieu: Survivance (coming soon)

Riopelle is one of my favourite Canadian painters, and I only wish he were better known, especially outside Canada.

Later in his career, Riopelle drew inspiration from Canada's aboriginal cultures, and the show fully addresses the issue of cultural appropriation.

Quilts = Art = Quilts @ the Schweinfurth Art Center

With so many of our museums and galleries closed, are you hungry to see some great art quilts?

The annual exhibition at the Schweinfurth in upstate New York is always exciting, and this year (the 40th anniversary year) they have made the show available to on-line visitors, giving them access to a virtual tour through the gallery. Seventy-one quilts, 58 national and international artists.

Well worth a look!

Susan Lapham, Playground #1, a prizewinner