Opening day!

The opening reception for the Threads of Resistance exhibit at the New England Quilt Museum on Saturday, July 15, 2017 was a huge success! Twelve of the artists were in attendance and the galleries were packed with visitors who came out for the opening. 

Nora Burchfield who is the executive director of the museum opened the reception...

(From left:) Judy Coates Perez, Leslie Tucker Jenison, Sue Bleiweiss

Pam Weeks, the museum’s curator (who you can see in the video above standing to the right of Nora) spoke for a moment and then Artist Circle Alliance members Judy Coates Perez, Leslie Tucker Jenison and I spoke about the exhibit and how it came together.  We kept our statements brief so that people could get to the reason they were there – to look at the fabulous artwork!










And there were a LOT of people who came out for the opening. The galleries were packed!  I had some really wonderful conversations with the visitors and didn’t take nearly as many photos as I was planning to, but I did manage to snap a few here and there. (Some of these photos were taken by Judy Coates Perez.)

  















It was wonderful to see people lingering in front of pieces, taking in the details and talking with the artists who were in attendance.

The museum has done a wonderful job with how they've grouped the pieces and set up the lighting for them.  The pieces are well lit and there are no barriers to stand behind so you can get really close to the artwork to view the details.

The exhibit spans all of the walls of the large classroom area and there are several more pieces in a separate room located off the main room.  

It seems that no matter how many times I look at each piece I always find some new detail that I didn’t notice before. This is definitely an exhibit that you’ll want to take your time with when viewing. There is so much detail and nuance in each piece. 

The exhibit will hang at the New England Quilt Museum through Saturday, September 9, 2017.  Then it will travel to Santa Clara, California where it will hang at the Pacific International Quilt Festival October 12-15, 2017. 

On its last day at the new England Quilt Museum, I (Sue Bleiweiss) will be doing a gallery lecture at 11 a.m. I’ll be talking about the Artist Circle Alliance and how the Threads of Resistance exhibit came to be, as well as the challenges we faced when we announced it and the logistics of putting together a large-scale traveling exhibit.

You can see the complete travel schedule for the exhibit here. To see all the artwork that was submitted to Threads of Resistance click here.