One of the places we stopped as we cruised upper NY was the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn NY to see the Nancy Crow exhibit. It was well worth the visit! I have to say, I am not all that thrilled with the very linear pieces she is currently doing (but who am I to say they aren't fabulous?) such as the one pictured above. I am deeply in love with some of her work from a few years back and with the few silkscreen and monoprint quilts that were shown. They gave me some great ideas to try in my own work.
Speaking of my own work, I came across a quote from Picasso. He said (something like) a good artist copies others' work but a great artist steals. I thought about that for a while. To me that means it is okay to be inspired by others work but the goal is not to copy it exactly but to make it your own. To add so much of yourself in the work, that the finished product may have much in common with the original but is clearly unique. To be done so well that when someone thinks of the subject, they think first of yours and then say "oh, and someone else did it too."
I saw some of Nancy Crow's quilts at an exhibit two years ago in Winston-Salem at the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art, and I was awestruck. There were several other nationally known quilters who exhibited, too, and it really is inspiring to see them in person, isn't it? Do you like upstate New York? I used to live about 1.5 hours away from Auburn to the northeast, north of Syracuse. I really miss it in the summer when it's 100 degrees every day here in North Carolina!
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