Favorite Quilt

Rachel and I went to the Mancusco World Quilt Show in Manchester, VT last weekend.  From past years we knew it's  a show so big it needs two days.  So this year we took two days and saw the hundreds of wonderful quilts -- a very good portion of them being art quilts.  The major country show was from Israel -- over 40 wonderful quilts from different quilters in that small country, most were art quilts and they were wonderful.  We loved most of the show and took our time since we, for a change, weren't hurrying to get back home at a reasonable hour.  I did not take very many photos because I usually feel too overwhelmed afterwards and always wish I had take this or that.

The quilt here is "The Squirrel's Speech" by Barbara McKie.  I fell totally in love with it. The various squirrels (and they are different ones) are photos, but their wonderful tails are thread painted.  As you see it follows the eating of the corn off the cob. Each squirrel seems to have an expression on it face. I discovered Barbara McKie at the time I discovered art quilting, in approximately 1981 at a show in the American Folk Art Museum in NYC.  At that time manipulating photos on fabric with a computer was just beginning and McKie was the first person whose work did that, as far as I knew.  I've watched her over the years and felt she was always a meticulous quilter, adventurously trying new things.  I did not always like her quilts but I always admired her perfectionist approach. 

Last year at the World Quilt Show she had two quilts, a bird and a little white dog, both mostly thread painted.  They were beautifully done, I admire them very much.  But this year I find something I have not seen in her work previously -- a sense of humor, a sense of play.  These squirrels and their "attitude" shows that.  I will print a second quilt of hers in the show another day along with a few other photos I took.