A great show and a little rant

We set off today on a solitary journey to a destination we've been looking forward to for some time. As we pulled out of the driveway we reflected that this is the first time we've been able to drive ourselves anywhere all on our own since before the great Summer of Sightlessness 2011. We didn't go far really, just 20 minutes or so to the Arthur Child Heritage Museum in Gananoque, ON, where, until October 10th, they are hosting the Threadworks 2010 exhibition.

We've been to 3 of these now. Threadworks is a juried show which is held every 3 years. It is organized by the Ontario Network of Needleworkers. The theme of the 2010 show is Trees. A significant number of pieces from the show travel throughout Ontario for a 3-year run but entry is open to any Canadian resident.

This tree-themed exhibit is nothing short of spectacular......and we can't show you a single image from it because no photography is allowed and there was no print catalogue available. The best we can do is point you here to see some very poor quality, low-res images. Some of them are very bad indeed. Not one does the original piece justice. Some must make the fibre artist cringe.

Why have we become so sensitive to possible copyright infringement that we have made this pieces completely unavailable to most of the viewing public? What is the point of making art, if no one gets to see it? Furthermore, what is the point of making these fabulous pieces of art available in a format that makes them look so crummy?

If you get a chance to see this exhibit, be sure to go. It's amazing. Thread painting, quilting, embroidery. Absolutely breath-taking.

Because we're cyber sleuths at heart, we googled some of the names. It's surprising that so few of the artists have websites that we could access. Here's a good one: Kate Madeloso from Halifax, NS, made a lovely, quiet piece that we missed on our first tour of the room. This often happens to us. The big, the bright and the bold catch our eye on first glance. On our second tour, we were startled to see there were hand-embroidered messages written along the branches of the tree .... a letter from a friend to the tree itself. She won best hand embroidery for her Message to Earth. You can see it here on her blog.

Tracy Lawko, from Glen Huron, ON, has a calm and peaceful thread painted scene called November Hedgerow. She has a web presence where you can see examples of her work but not, unfortunately the piece from the show. Fortunately, it's one of the few that shows quite well in the Threadworks Catalogue.

Our very favourite piece didn't win any prize.  Can't See The Trees For The Forest by Linda Hiebert of Thornhill ON is perfect. Perfectly rendered. Elegant. And humorous. We can't find her online and that's a shame. Have a look in the catalogue. You probably won't be able to see it well enough but we won't spoil the experience by explaining what we saw just in case you have the great good fortune to see it in person.

There are still a few venues. You can see the schedule here. Oh, and in spite of what it says there, the show's on in Gananoque until October 10th.