Y'all! I finally got to go SEE it!!!

Ta da!!!

Getting back home from my trip to FL/KS/FL was... an adventure. There were canceled flights and ground stops (one was for a rocket launch!) and a nine-hour layover in a bonus city. All with a nine-year-old in tow.

I'm all tuckered out!

And we only got home just yesterday afternoon.

BUT.

I was still really excited to finally get to go see the Aurora Borealis exhibition!!!

I dropped off the two pieces I submitted for jurying just a couple days before we left for our trip—and I would have had to go pick them back up the next day if they hadn't been accepted. I think my husband was more relieved that we didn't have to go back downtown again than he was excited that I got into the show! 😆

But I still feel like it's just SO COOL that I have my work on display in an art gallery in downtown Honolulu!!!

I especially love the mixture of glass and fiber for this theme.

They both have distinctly different ways of exploring and expressing light and color. But they paired together beautifully.

If you haven't seen a video yet, I actually have TWO to share with you!

​This one is the fiber juror walkthrough, where Suzie Liles talks about the award winning pieces. (One of them was crocheted!) She speaks of seeing the aurora in person and describes it as "kind of mystical, scary, and magical!" Which I just love!

And this one is a video and photo compilation walk through of ALL the work. It's long, so I watched it on 4x speed, ha ha, which is definitely a different experience!

The show is really incredible, though, so you should definitely watch the video if you can, even if you gotta go at super speed!

I was actually "sitting" the show today as a volunteer. All accepted artists are asked to sit the show to help make sure there's someone there to greet visitors, answer questions, maintain the displays as needed, and, of course, to help with processing any sales of the art in the show.

My job today was also to go around and reinforce the labels for each piece that were stuck onto the walls and pedestals. There were several with corners that were curling up, so it was actually a much needed task. Though my thumb hurt a little bit afterwards from burnishing all those labels!

Here's a closer look at each of my two included works:

The Dream Tapestry you've maybe seen before as it's one of my earliest ones.

The artist statement reads:

There is a secret message that is literally "DREAM BIG" spelled out (so to speak) in the A1Z26 cypher (yes, I'm a nerd) with the golden thread that is woven into the fabric. D-R-E-A-M (4-18-5-1-13) are the vertical strands, with small spaces in between each grouping. And the horizontal strands are B-I-G (2-9-7). There was room for a bit more space between groupings on that one! If you zoom in, you might be able to see the two strands of thread along the top for the B.

Now for the Twilight Tapestry!

This purple beauty started as a gathering of purple fiber that I had (I have a lot of purple lovers over on Patreon!), much of it from a purple themed Phat Fiber shipment that I hadn't even opened yet. But as I started working with it, the blue jacaranda tree began to drop its purple blooms all over our backyard, and so it quickly became synonymous with my favorite tree here in Hawaii!

But when I read the call for this show, I knew this purple gradient would be a perfect match for the aurora borealis theme, especially paired with my blue and green Dream Tapestry! It amused me that they separated the two of them with a corner.

Here's the artist statement for this piece within the context of the show:

Oh and also? I turned it upside down for this interpretation! It was actually crocheted from the dark to the light. But it reminded me of some of the pictures I've seen of purple aurorae over snow, with the light fading into the night sky above.

So. What do you think? Are they a perfect fit or what!?

I know this is a long email already, but I wanted to share a few more pictures with you.

This was the only other crocheted piece I saw in the show:

It was also one of the award winners! (Best Stitching from Hawaiʻi Stitchery & Fine Arts Guild)

The title is Souls Revealed and it was crocheted by Christine Valles. She's one of the few people in the show who have actually seen the aurora borealis in person! She says this piece represents movement and that the aurora borealis is "the souls of the people we love who have passed on."

My son was particularly interested in a lot of the glass work.

Karl Hensel was an Invited Artist from Maui. He seeks to "express Joy and Play" in his work.

This one was Carson's favorite:

I like it, too!

It's called Poseidon.

And with that, I seem to be suddenly all out of words!

I am, still, or perhaps again, all tuckered out!

So. I will chat with you again next week, I'm sure.

And, you know, if you just so happen to be local to Oʻahu (or visiting!), the show runs through July 26th. I hope you can stop by!

Cheers!

-Connie

P.S. Shoutout to this kid for being (mostly) patient and positive during our epic travel adventure trying to get back home this week AND for turning around and spending three hours tucked away in a corner of an art gallery for three hours the very next day!!