Saturday, September 12, 2009

Quilt Expo Underwhelms

First, let me start off by saying that I would be indistinguishable in a crowd of middle aged women wearing capri pants, sensible shoes, misshapen but comfortable tee-shirts and carrying a bag the size of a small Midwestern town. Which is exactly where I found myself at this year's Quilt Expo.

But for all the trouble I've gone to to develop my Quilt Expo Camouflage, I guess I forgot one key element. An overriding interest in traditional quilting. That's not to say I don't appreciate it. Row after row of lovingly constructed, beautifully executed quilts graced this year's quilt exhibit, a large display inexplicably walled off in the very center of the room, and set up so that you are forced to zig zag back and forth, dodging camera shots and docents. You are given a slip of paper at the beginning to vote for your favorite, but make your decision carefully. Should you decide to go back and see an earlier quilt again it's similar to a salmon spawn.

Some of the details were breath taking. The minute stitches. The carefully pieced intricate patterns. The time consuming and almost unimaginable attention to detail was enough to make even my jaded attention span pause. There was one quilt where the beauty of the pattern was entirely created by incredibly dense quilting of deep orange thread on a lighter orange fabric. Stunning. But I wanted more.

I wanted art. To be fair, I'll amend that to I wanted MORE art. There were some beautifully artistic pieces but most of it was simply perfectly executed traditional quilting. Nice but hardly art.

Maybe it was the booths surrounding the show, more than the show itself. Yards and yards of fabric. More sample quilts. But it's all been done before. I've seen it before. There wasn't anything that I saw that I thought was truely innovative. And that's the problem.

I love quilts. They are both warm and extravagantly time consuming. They can be beautiful and fascinating. But they seem to have reached their limit. There doesn't seem to be anything new going on with the quilting world, other than technical advances that make it easier to make your traditional quilt.

And that's okay, it's just not for me.

And, as a side note. $5.50 for PARKING? Are you kidding Alliant Energy Center? Really?



No comments: