Friends of the Museum tour

Helena asked me for an account of my tour bus group, so here goes....

First, I was surprised how far down our narrow, winding road the tour bus drove. I could certainly see it from my front door, and the visitors had only perhaps 50 meters to walk to the end of our driveway. They showed up on time, around noon, and planned to stay about 45 minutes. I can't say if they overstayed, because it was such a whirlwind I was not watching the clock. I didn't get to take any pictures of the group either.



They had been told to organize themselves into three groups of twelve, and I took the first group immediately up to my studio. I had my design wall covered with about 20 labelled samples of different techniques, and I explained a few of them, and then showed them how to do image transfer using TAP and Citrasolv. Some of them tried their hand at it. I showed my "Connections" piece with the TAP images of the four women in my family, the sweater pattern, etc., and explained how it had all been done using TAP and paint, buttons, yarn, stitching, and how this was an example of "mixed media". There was some interest in my use of the term "technically, a quilt", and the explanation of three layers held together with stitching. They all thought the whole business was highly original, and at least one asked me if I gave lessons. I told her to take my card and get back to me, but I explained that I usually taught to quilting groups rather than to novices, because of the highly specialized nature of these techniques. I tried to relate a couple of examples of things you could do with children, like having a child draw on TAP with markers and then ironing it onto fabric and making a special pillow for their bedroom, etc. or sunprints using Setacolor.

Anyway, with only ten minutes per group, and three groups, there wasn't a lot of time for questions or explanations.

I have to admit that a lot of them would have been happy just to see the house and the kitchen! But I did have 35 different pieces hung, and I did make a sale of one larger piece, with interest shown in a second, and also four fabric post cards. I had two friends helping, and I had prepared a list, room by room, of all the pieces and their sale prices, as well as little labels for each.

It was an awful lot of work with very little financial reward, but it was certainly prestigious to be included on such a tour, and I would do it again for that reason alone. As an honorarium, I was given a lovely large book about the artist Waterhouse, who was the subject of an exhibit at the MMFA recently. It was a nice group of people, mostly bilingual, mostly in their fifties and sixties. I switched back and forth a lot between English and French, and tried to cover all the bases. I served iced tea and ice water and had a bowl of apples available.

Ron and I leave tomorrow for six days in NYC. I am bringing my laptop with me so I can keep up with the adventures of 12 by the Dozen!