This time we do not reflect over a specific subject per se, rather welcome you in this new environment where we will continue to share works and thoughts with you about what we do in the artistic part of our lives.

We kept the design philosophy of the previous website as the basis for the new, so you may have a certain sense of déjà vu. But spending a little time here you will begin to observe improvements in functionality and notice new details. And then you may ask yourself the question: How did they manage to implement this new site? And maybe the more pertinent question: Should’nt they be busy creating art instead of concentrating on establishing a new website?

There is a common answer to these questions. We knew that the previous website did not provide the functionality and aesthetic appearance we wanted for the visitors to the site. We also knew, that we didn’t have neither the skills it would take to establish the new website, nor the time to learn them. So we decided to team up with professionals. For the last couple of months we drilled with Gloria and Derry from GloDerWorks to obtain the desired design and functionality within the constraints of the internet and the technology available to exploit it.

Our Quilt Show should now be more enjoyable for you to see. The flow of images is automatic and very smooth, and should you feel like spending more time with a specific work in the show, you can now stop the show for as long as you like. You can even go back to the previous one – and when you feel ready to continue the show, you tell it to do so. Just roll your mouse over the image.

We like this way of presenting such type of information, and applied it to the About Us and the Lectures sections as well.

The About Us section provides new angles on who we are and the philosophy behind our artistic activities. But what is really new, in terms of content is the Lectures section, where we inform about lectures developed as a response to the many requests we have had over the years for providing exactly that. It starts out very modestly, but should grow gradually, and you keep track of our progress by visiting the Lectures section once in a while.

Finally, as you already noticed, the Blog is now an integral part of our website. From here you can navigate directly to the other sections. We believe this to be a nice and user friendly feature.

We enjoyed working with Gloria and Derry – they have been very responsive to our ideas and requirements as they evolved. Seeking professional support was the right choice for us. And you know what? Now we can pass all the blame on them if something doesn’t work!
 

When driving to Alsace last week Inge and I discussed what would be interesting to see in the other exhibitions in the 13ème Carrefour Européen du Patchwork (alias the 13th European Patchwork Meeting) Val d’Argent.

For one of them, the “10^eme Anniversaire” staged by the 5-artist group Textile Impact, it would be interesting for us to see if an exhibition representing few artists working together would be more coherent than an exhibition representing many artists – a subject we have discussed earlier on this blog.

With coherence we meant equal levels amongst artists in terms of expression and mastery of the medium.

So what did we notice? Our impression was that the exhibition staged by the group of 5 appeared harmonious what regards means of expression and artistic mastery. The artists appeared to be at comparable levels of professionalism and evolution. This seems to be more difficult to obtain with a larger group of artists.

One could argue that few artists statistically should have a higher probability of staging a coherent exhibition than a larger group, so our observation in Val d’Argent should not be a surprise.

It wasn’t a surprise, but the observation led to another question: What is the glue that ties a group together, makes it work over many years in terms of mutual inspiration, proactive artistic development and a joint drive to stage good coherent exhibitions?

We do not have experience with working in groups larger than our own 2-person, so we had to guess a little here. The obvious ingredients in that glue must be peer levels in skills and artistic drive. We are not here saying that the artists must have the same way of expressing themselves artistically – opposites in that respect can probably be very fruitful.

We felt, though that there had to be other, less obvious but important ingredients in that glue required for tying a group together and make it work and progress. We identified them as mutual respect and harmony – harmony, at the personal level.

The 5-artist group Textile Impact obviously radiated harmony at the personal level, and it was as if their exhibition radiated this as well. A good achievement!

When driving home yesterday evening from the vernissage of Anne Woringer’s solo exhibition in Saint Jean aux Bois we discussed the subject of harmony in her exhibition. Anne had selected works from the last 10 years, and as a collection they radiated harmony in terms of evolution, materials, techniques and artistic expression.

And in this context harmony does not mean monotony – au contraire!

We expected that the morning of the first day of the exhibition in Val d’Argent – that was Thursday – would be very calm and allow Inge to check out the other exhibitions while I greeted maybe 20-25 visitors per hour on average. Inge had looked forward to that and I could warm up gradually to welcome visitors and answer the questions they always have about our works.

What we did not expect though, was that so many visitors had looked forward to seeing the exhibitions in Les Tisserands that they lined up before the doors opened and continued to pour in all morning – and all day – ticking the counter up in the neighbourhood of 5000 by day’s end.

The interest in knowing our sources of inspiration and ways of working was overwhelming and engaged us continuously with the visitors trying to explain exactly that. Many of them had seen some of the exhibited works in various exhibitions over the years, but being amongst 25 of them as they were grouped according to themes (people, birds, animals and insects, flowers) and through these experiencing our evolution from 1997 to 2005 appeared to be something special – also for the relatively high percentage of gentlemen accompanying their wives or visiting alone.

Many of the visitors had come from far away with the specific purpose to see our exhibition and with a hope to meet us there. It was so overwhelming and often touching that we felt an obligation to attend the exhibition all day – an obligation to be available. So – no lunch!

With the attendance in our gallery continuing at almost the same level during Friday and Saturday we had found a new way to loose weight: stage an interesting exhibition! We thought though, that Sunday would be quiet. Statistics from previous years supported that expectation, but a visit earlier in the week – while we were hanging the exhibition – by a journalist from a regional newspaper apparently changed that.

She had featured our exhibition in the Saturday issue of DNA (Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace) – in the Culture and Lifestyle section “Reflets” – and that brought the locals in, notably on the following Sunday. Although it was not like the preceding days’ influx of visitors, the locals nevertheless arrived in a steady flow throughout the Sunday.

The journalist, Anne Muller, spent two hours with us and our collection and maybe it was because she was not a quilter herself – but a very observant individual interested in what she saw – that her entry angles on many aspects were new to us. They certainly formed the basis for a lively and well written article that apparently struck a chord with the locals to such a degree that they felt inclined to visit our exhibition.

This could be the chief reason why one of Sunday morning’s first visitors – an elderly lady dressed in black – came to see the exhibition. I believe, however that had she been in doubt, then the title of the article “Tableaux Haute Couture” would finally have convinced her that she had to see it.

She walked calmly around amongst our works, took them in with lively observant eyes and reflected her impressions to us through a gentle smile that widened as she progressed through our exhibition.

She had read the article, she said, and wanted to see it before going to church and was very pleased with what she saw. Very unexpected, she said.

It dawned upon me what an honour it was to have her there. She had found it worthwhile to spend 12 € of her pension to come visiting us. I could have embraced her – and had I done that I would not be surprised if a tear had dropped down on her shoulder. It was a very moving moment – very zen – which – mixed with the gentle light of a bright morning – boded well for the last day of the exhibition in Sainte Marie aux Mines.

There was the young journalist from the Alsatian newspaper who – a week or two ago – called and fired 5-6 questions off in a rapid tempo. She wanted to know some facts about us for a column in that day’s issue on the quilt event 13ème Carrefour Européen du Patchwork (alias the 13th European Patchwork Meeting) in Val d’Argent, France.

Before that – several months ago, actually – a well prepared editor representing the French Patchwork Association (Association France Patchwork) approached us with an invitation for a written interview to be published in the September issue of the association’s quarterly magazine Nouvelles du Patchwork. Her aim was to provide the readership a portrait of us in the context of our artistic activities.

And before that we had accepted an invitation by the organizers of the quilt event to give a formal introduction to our exhibition at 19:00 on Friday the 14^th of September.

These are three so different – but mutually complementing – ways to address the public about an exhibition, that the question of whether one is better than the other becomes irrelevant.

Whereas we believe that the media coverage provides additional publicity for the quilt event per se, we will, on a personal scale, not be able to assess whether it makes a difference for us individually, since this will be our first participation in the Carrefour Européen du Patchwork in Val d’Argent.

We believe, however, that the media coverage does make a positive difference for the visitors by informing about the people behind the works they are going to see in the exhibition.

We also believe that the formal introduction to our exhibition in Espace des Tisserands, Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines on next Friday evening will be interesting for the attendees by gaining an insight in how we curated the exhibition and getting a feeling for aspects in our works that may not be immediately apparent, but to which we have paid a lot of attention during the creative process of implementing them.

If not for anything else, the formal introduction will feature one aspect that the press cannot feature – that of experiencing us amongst a collection of our works and sensing the enthusiastic engagement we have with our art.

In the past week I noticed that journalists in various media felt an urge to comment on recently published statistics for flight delays during the month of June, according to which more than 30% of flights were either delayed or cancelled.

I know what they say about statistics, but let us for the sake of this blog entry say that they are true. OK, the figures related to the situation in North America, but the numbers of delayed flights I have experienced make me believe that the figures might as well apply for Europe.

Discussing this statistic with Inge quickly led to the question: Does a good design of an airport – in terms of construction and the interior design – make delays more bearable for the travellers?

Recalling the range of airports we know about we easily concluded that a good design positively counteracts the irritation of being delayed. Also, that a well designed airport infrastructure lowers the stress of travelling. Colours, light conditions, spatial layouts of transfer-areas, wall decorations, architecture in shopping and resting areas – are all factors in the overall algorithm for a stress reducing airport.

How do these factors ease the traveller’s mind in situations usually considered as being stressful and/or irritating?

We believe that they affect the traveller positively by the sheer provision of a pleasant atmosphere. By providing surroundings which please the eye and details which engage the curiosity.

And what is wrong with that?

In our eyes: nothing – on the contrary! It is exactly in the infrastructure of modern travelling that spaces are available to excel in interior design, in applying candid colour schemes, providing sculptural components of not-for-the-home sizes – and integrate this with facilities for physical comfort.

Why is it then that some airports are mere makeshift camps and others architecturally interesting?

Why are some basically just shelters for bad weather reminiscent of deranged storehouses and others interesting and well laid out to provide travellers with comfort?

Why are some waiting lounges/areas designed with a remarkable neglect for physical and mental comfort, why others have had exactly these factors in mind?