SDA News Blog makes me giddy! Thanks Marci Rae McDade

Blessings have come my way in more ways than one lately. 

Last week my former professor Laura Strand head of textiles at SIUE invited me to be visiting artist for her advanced students.  (That's a detail of her work to the left which is a collaboration piece using my rusted silk as the weft in her weaving.)  I am excited--yet terrified (as I usually am prior to teaching).  I'm making preparations, pulling out my rusted and organically printed fabrics and typing notes.  The class is next week.  Oh my!  Laura says the class is small, but there is a general invitation being issued to all departments regarding my lecture.  Yikes!

Preparations like this always make me crazy.  I fly around in a tizzy and distract myself endlessly from the task at hand.  So tonight when I was FINALLY going to get something done I checked my email.

And there IT was.  An email from Luanne Rimel at Craft Alliance with the announcement that Marci Rae McDade, now the editor of Surface Design Journal, has finally published an article about last fall's Innovations 2011 in St. Louis, the textile event I've written about in several posts.  Last year my life was consumed in curating and participating in Collaboration: Reaping and Sewing. 

Composite view of Collaboration: Reaping and Sewing exhibit looking to the back of gallery at Jacoby Arts Center

Innovations encompasses many shows in 20 some galleries around St. Louis and St. Charles in Missouri and Edwardsville and Alton in Illinois.  The openings and run dates of the shows vary quite a bit, some starting as early as August and some running late into November and December.  The biggest event however is the weekend mid September with many openings on Friday, followed by the keynote address and the "in the city" bus tour on Saturday of some 11 galleries and ending with a party for the artists at the private home of some fiber art collectors in St. Louis (an amazing collection!).   It was an exhausting day with several thrills along the way, but perhaps the most interesting of all was hearing Marci Rae McDade's keynote address at the History Museum.  She is a fabulous speaker with a seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of both historical and contemporary textile art.

Marci came along for the ride on the bus tour and I got to meet her briefly.  Thanks to a hint from Jo Stealey who has met Marci before, Marci said she wanted to see the shows in Illinois before returning to Oregon.  I made a few late night phone calls (from the party) and arranged for someone to open the Edwardsville Arts Center the next day which is usually closed on Sundays.  Laura Strand who curated the show there met us and afterwards we all drove up to Alton to see the collaboration show that Jo, Laura and I along with Erin Vigneau Dimick, Nina Ganci and Erin Cork worked on together. 

I can't tell you what a thrill it was to spend nearly 3 hours of private time with Marci that Sunday, getting to discuss my work and that of my colleagues.  She was very encouraging, especially regarding my taking the next step to write about and create a catalog of the show.  Everywhere that weekend, Marci was snapping photographs and taking notes.  She promised that she would include my show in the article and she was true to her word AND HOW!!.

I AM GIDDY!   See the article here.  The best is saved for (almost) last.  Woo hoo.
Love you Marci Rae McDade!
Thank you so much.

OK, back to work...