Rik Wouters in Mechelen

Rik Wouters, born and bred in Mechelen (Malin),got his permanent place in his native town. His paintings and sculptures are exhibited in the beautiful medieval building that is sympathetically renovated and is very Flemish like Rik Wouters himself. Till 1911 he was more a sculptor, than a painter, but his passion for colour won and during the last years of his short life he painted a lot. Among Rik's sketches I found a drawing of this bridge.  While drawing he he could clearly see the bridge, this beautiful house (below) and the tower of this very peculiar cathedral.





The name of Rik Wouters is not very well known outside Belgium. He looked like this







He was crazy about his wife Nel








He died when he was 34.

Chagall and Fechin

Last week in Moscow I had one day to catch up with capital's cultural life. There were many attractions but I visited two exhibitions in Tretyakov Gallery, because I was still doubting that I'd chosen the right painter for my composition essay. The exhibition of Chagall's graphics and paintings from private collections would suit the purpose of my essay but unfortunately taking photos was forbidden, even without a flash. The exhibition was quite interesting, because I had never seen his graphics before. It brought together all kinds of works of different periods of his life:portraits more abstract compositions, sketches and studies. Some of them were more impressive than the others, I also loved his textile collages and illustrations of Gogol's novels. A couple of photos I found on the internet.



As for the second exhibition-Portraiture of Nikolai Fechin (spelled also Feshin), it was superb. One of my favourites:

Textile festival in Russia

Last week I was in Russia, where my textile group Art-igra held the first ever exhibition. The group includes quilters from Russia and Ukraine, the goals are to enhance creativity and help the members to find their own voice of self-expression. The exhibition wasn't big but got a lot of enthusiastic response. In comparison with the rest of the world, there are no internet groups of this kind in Russia. Our next exhibition is planned for august 2013, I suggested a new theme -Emotional Intelligence for the whole year, meaning that the next four works will have one underlying idea-expressing emotions, the first work- "Jealousy" is due end October.






The festival itself is a self-proclaimed art-quilt festival. The selection of competition quilts was quite thought-provoking. The theme of the contest -"female soul" embraced all the facets of women's crafts but didn't show the individual soul of a quilt-maker. Some rare examples of personal expression not connected with the idea of "being Russian" or " I wish I were a 19th century lady with a lace umbrella" were criticized by jury members for not observing the laws of Applied Arts. It seemed that strong personal emotion, troubled soul or nervous breakdown were not welcome as theme of the quilt in general. "Much too depressing, too many realistic details together with stylized background, stay within the Applied Arts aesthetics"-those were the often given comments.





The discrepancy between the Art-quilt direction of the festival and Applied Arts limitations seems to bring misunderstanding and confusion to the public and participants. The organizers even admitted that the technical quality of the quilt is not important for them, stressing that they invite art-quilt to participate. No wonder that in Russia "art-quilt" is strongly associated with poor quality, raw edges, untidiness, bulky shape.
Some disagreements with the approach of the jury and organizers doesn't mean that there were no beautiful examples of craftsmanship. I just hoped to see more individual "female soul" expressions.

Nabokov's estate

The house of Nabokov's family is one of the last well preserved wooden estates built in the 18th century. The landlord's house in neoclassical style often invites textile artists to exhibit. Irina Voronina and Uliana Trishina were lucky to get the beautiful ball-room as their gallery this month. I love their works but the surroundings of the house were so stunning, that I took more pictures outside than inside.

Stalkers/Сталкеры

If you are familiar with the "Roadside Piknic" a famous science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (all literate Russians of my generation are), then the word "Stalker" immediately brings you reminiscences of a Tarkovsky film and not the annoying psychopath intruding your personal life. In this film, "Stalker" is a guide to the mysterious Zone, a forbidden place which has intelligence of its own. The photographers I know remind me this character strongly. They penetrate all the forbidden zones, semi-derelict houses, and when they can discover an abandoned hospital or factory with signs of human existence still there, they keep the location in secret and only trusted friends can be guided to the shooting scene. I know a couple of Stalkers and gladly go with them when invited. Not because I am a good photographer, I am just curious and enthusiastic)). They make a lot of research before they start shooting and need a sympathetic listener to share the information. Last weekend it was an old petroleum refinery in the Harbour of Antwerp, covered with litter and stained with graffiti The place that will disappear without a trace, will be demolished soon - seems to be a perfect reason to take photographs. While taking photos I was thinking about Tarkovsky's film. I found out I didn't remember any scene, only a feeling that I had when I watched it last time many years ago. The same mixed feeling of danger and curiosity was swirling in this place. Precarious glass on the roof, rusty and shaky ladders to the attic spaces, surreal objects and rain, lots of rain.

Bitta Ankenbauer surface design course

The exhibition I visited this weekend was quite a special one. Two years ago I met Britta Ankenbauer in Luxembourg, this year she brought an exhibition of her pupils. The course "surface design" she teaches seems to be popular, she is busy with her third group at the moment. Her students are not only quilters, she is sure that the members of the interdisciplinary groups can enrich each other by exchanging techniques and knowledge of different materials. They are very different in spite of the fact that Britta has her own distinctive style. It happens all the time that during a class of a well-known artist, his/her students are supposed to make quilt in a style of a teacher or simply copy one of the teachers works. For Britta the goal is not to teach a number of techniques, but inspire to render personal experience to a piece of fiber art and it doesn't matter if it is three dimensional, mixed media or batik without batting and quilting. According to the rule of the Module 2 I have to choose 5 pieces of the exhibition to analyze. I haven't chosen an exhibition to write about yet, but it has become a habit to select 5 works every time I go to any exhibition. Probably a good idea, helps to remember the most impressive ones.

The most impressive (for different reasons) 5 of Britta's exhibition (I didn't include her own works)

Veldhoven 2012

Veldhoven quilt show is one of my favourites, because it's in May, where quilt shows are still scarce, because it's not far from my home and because it's democratic and even novice can be accepted though the standards are high. This year it was quite painful to see the competition quilts hanging in the air in such a way that the back of the bigger quilt served as a background for the smaller one. Needless to say they didn't match. I understand that the space is an issue but some contributors were very unhappy with the way their quilts were presented. This quilt acquired a white frame



this one-polka dot blue "sky" around



These three were visually "extended" in length, and the hexagon shape of the middle one became a square





The advantage of such presentation is, however, that one could step backwards to look at the quilt from some distance, last year it was impossible, the rigid screens with quilts formed narrow passages.




I didn't have time to have a closer look at all the competition quilts, but composition of some of them (IMHO) needed more attention. I would have loved to meet the authors and ask them about their choices and about other options they considered.







This quilt was made by Corinne Zambeek Thanks to these quilts I can't wait to go to Veldhoven next year.



Maya Khaimovitch