Culture
‘Mastery’ on Display at Dairy Barn
By: Emily Votaw
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The evening of May 27 marked the opening reception for the Dairy Barn Arts Center’s most recent exhibition, entitled Mastery: Sustaining Momentum.
“When I think back on the first Quilt National, there were many big pieces, large quilts, those were the quilts that inspired me,” said Nancy Crow, the exhibition’s curator and renowned fiber artist in her own right. “It’s been sad to see so many exhibitions shrink, to see them dwindle in recent years. When I was putting together this exhibition, I decided to contact artists that I knew would be very capable of creating large masterworks.”
The artists that Crow entrusted with crafting the sort of large, captivating pieces that she was looking for include Margaret Boys-Wolf from Issaquah WA; Bonnie Bucknam from Vancouver, WA; Marina Kamenskaya from Wauconda, IL; Judy Kirpich of Takoma Park, MD; Colleen Kole from Grand Rapids, MI; Helen McBride Richter from Atlanta, GA; Leslie Joan Riley from Skokie, IL; Arturo Alonzo Sandoval from Lexington, KY; Gerri Spilka from Philadelphia, PA; Heide Stoll-Weber of Frankfurt, Germany and Kit Vincent of Elizabethtown, Ontario, Canada. Crow also contributed to the exhibition with her own works.
“We’ve had a wonderful turnout tonight,” said Meaghan Duffy, Quilt National and exhibitions director at the Dairy Barn Arts Center, during the public reception for the works. “Everyone has been speechless – in a good way – when they walk in the doors and see the works. Truly, though, it would be really hard to do anything but ‘wow’ visitors with these incredible masterworks.”
During the reception, Dairy Barn Arts Center executive director Jane Forrest Redfern took the stage in the middle of the gallery and spoke to the crowd about the status of the organization’s capital campaign. So far, the group’s efforts to fundraise have resulted in new paneling and new carpeting throughout the gallery. However, Redfern emphasized that the organization is still working hard to raise another $300,000 to reach their campaign goal of $1 million.
Julie Weller, the events and outreach manager for the Dairy Barn, said that the funds raised by the capital campaign have allowed the organization to plan to begin construction on the main entrance of the Dairy Barn’s building this summer. Overall, the group hopes to add a new entrance, a multi-purpose room, a new gallery shop, a kitchen for catering services and an outside patio.
“These are truly world class pieces,” said Lynn Last Rothstein, the president of the 2016 Dairy Barn Board of Trustees, of the exhibition. “These could hang anyplace in the world and truly awe people.”
Mastery: Sustaining Momentum will be on display in the Sauber Gallery at the Dairy Barn Arts Center through November 27. The gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursday 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. General admission is $10; senior and student admission is $8 and children under the age of 18 and Dairy Barn members receive free admission. For more information on the exhibition or the Dairy Barn Arts Center, visit www.dairybarn.org.