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The opening reception for my show was FANTASTIC! First, take a quick look at the artwork.

exhibit before opening

If you’re extremely observant, you may have noticed that the video included one piece with a red dot on the label. That’s right, it sold BEFORE the opening! Woohoo! I was elated. Here it is.

Poppies AblazeLots of people came to the reception. Many of them were family and friends, plus a healthy dose of quilters. I even saw people from my high school days! (And RECOGNIZED some of them! Crazy.)

Here I am with long-time family friends.

And here are a few more artwork photos, moving around the room. These are 6 pieces in my Notes for a Friend series. (They worked well with the adjacent purple cabinet.)

The corner with Spring Forth. It was one of the pieces I mentioned in my remarks.

Exuberance, centered on the right wall.

The far right corner, showing the second aqua wall.

Several people complemented me on the use of the aqua walls. I was just LUCKY to have artwork in those colors!

Close-ups of two more Notes for a Friend. These both sold that night.

This piece also sold that night, Ti Plants A-Glow-Glow.

To say that the evening was exhilarating is an understatement. I got to talk about my work to a room full of interested people. (I got LOTS of questions and had many small group conversations.) And I got to catch up with old friends and enjoy the company of family. It was a great event!

There was so much interest in my process that a gallery talk/demo was quickly added for June 28th, at 2 PM. I love that!

This show will be up until June 29th. If  you’re in central VA I hope you’ll get to see it.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Exhibit details

I arrived at The Arts Center in Orange, VA with a thorough plan about how I would hang my show. But, you know what they say about that sort of thing. It turns out that some of the measurements and the configuration were a little different than I had anticipated.

For instance, this was my plan for the left wall.

Then, I got there and discovered this in the middle of that wall.

I knew this purple cabinet would be in the space, but I thought I’d be able to reposition it. But no: it was bolted to the wall! Time to rethink. I ended up shifting the 3 pieces to the left corner and adjacent wall. I was really happy with the way the artwork played off the aqua color.

To the right of the cabinet I hung 6 of my little Notes for a Friend.  That’s my mom helping me measure.

I had two more EXCELLENT helpers, my sister-in-law, Lisa, and a local fiber artist friend, Marty. It took us quite a while and there’s no way I could have done it without them.

This was my plan for the brick wall. It’s the main wall you see when entering the room.

I was able to hang it exactly as planned. I’ll show you better photos in the next post, but these will give you an idea.

We were all ready for the show to open! The opening reception was a blast and I’ll show you about that in my next post.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Exhibit details: The Arts Center in Orange, Orange, VA, May 1 – June 29.

After touring the Vatican Museum we finally got to go into the church part of the Vatican: St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s the largest church in the world, and the most opulent. Gold and marble cover most of the surfaces and it’s absolutely HUGE. The architecture and art are absolutely amazing!

There is tons of symbolism everywhere. The sculptures of people all have significance. The central figure on the roof is Jesus, with Saint Peter on the right.

The interior of the basilica was GORGEOUS! It was spacious, with high ceilings, marble statues, and gilded surfaces in all directions. The pagoda shaped structure near the far end is actually a huge scaffold in front of an altar(?)

This panoramic shot gives you a glimpse of the crossing corridors. (Did I mention it’s huge?)

This sculpture of Mary, Jesus’ mother, holding his body is very moving.

The domed ceiling was amazing! And SO high!

It was hard to take it all in, but I highly recommend trying.

Ellen Lindner

Wow, the Vatican DID NOT disappoint!

The ceilings had me completely mesmerized! Some were beautiful in their structure and carvings. 

Others were adorned with an ABUNDANCE of individual art pieces. Such was the case in the hall displaying tapestries, below.

As you can see, there’s lots of art painted on the ceilings, and the Sistine Chapel is no exception. However, you’re not supposed to talk there, so the tour guides all stop at explanatory panels on the way. Here’s the one showing ALL the ceiling artwork. Just as this image shows, there’s way more artwork than you can possibly take in. And it’s all about 20′ over your head. It’s impossible to appreciate and that’s a real shame.

If you’re like me, you’re looking for “The Creation of Adam” on the poster above, just as I did. You’ll find it near the center of the ceiling. There’s a larger version in the top right corner of this panel. Unfortunately, it looked more like the left image in real life. I think I could have covered that part of the ceiling with only 2 fingers and my outstretched arm. I kept thinking, “Why did they include so many small images? Why not just a few big ones, so we could see them better?”

The poster above also shows a little bit about the restoration of the ceiling. Look at the 3rd image from the top, in the right half. Can you see how the two sides of it look different? The left side is what it looked like before restoration and the right half is after. A very big difference.

While in the courtyard studying the above panel our tour guide also showed us the big contemporary sphere and rotated it for us. It smoothly glides while staying in one place.

There was lots of sculpture in the museum. But way more than I could take in!

I was completely floored by the artwork we saw in the museum. Then  we went into St. Peter’s Basilica. Oh my! I’ll show you that soon.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. There’s a ton of information online about the Vatican Museum. This link takes you to multiple virtual tours, including one of the Sistine Chapel. Here you can see multiple Sistine Chapel paintings before and after restoration. (Large enough to appreciate.)