First-time Visit to IQF, Houston 2017
I trust you'll find images of the International Quilt Festival (IQF) prize winners on the internet. Here is a more personal view of the contrasts: the sleek skyline and kids playing in water.
It's the 4th of November, hot and humid. The children are having "summer fun" while right next to it an ice-skating ring is built for "winter fun".
My favorite contrast: the successful, sleek inner city of skyscrapers contrasting with children successfully integrated across different races, ages etc.
The hot outside contrasts with the cold inside of the enormous convention center (you see how it blurred my vision ;) - halls for vendors (my favorite Renaissance Ribbons) and exhibition halls of 1600 quilts (my "A Glass of Water" is one of them).
The exhibitions are truly international, contrasting many different techniques and artistic views: wind chimes by an American group, letters of a departed friend sewn together by a Dutch artist, colorful fish from Taiwan, overlapping technique (that I also saw in the Biennale in Venice), and many more.
You could see quilts in different sizes from large to miniature.
Outside again: with a $1.25 red Metro ride you can get to the museum district. Again, there's much more than I can pack into a single blog post, from African textiles in a permanent collection to the temporary fashion show of Oscar de la Renta.
The love of textiles truly goes through all ages and continents.
P.S. IQF also showed wearable art.
