Something to Show for It

Lovely T

Her website and occassional blog is here:

terriloui.wordpress.com

 

I know a lot of guys who have wooden boats or Melonseeds, or both, and have artists for wives. Must have something to do with placing such a high value on aesthetics, even above more practical things. I can think of seven off the top of my head without even trying hard, guys that I know personally. Definitely a pattern to it.

Back when the Melonseeds moved out of the basement, T moved in, and the boat shop became an art studio, or maybe just one of a different kind. That was part of the deal: Once the boats were done, T could use it for her studio. (It’s how I got her to help me get that nasty basement converted to useable space.)

 

 

 

 

We both love books. The house is cluttered, some would say furnished, with them. They long ago started overflowing the bookshelves, and lie stacked in piles on the floor by favorite chairs, by the bed, in the TV room, in the office, etc.. We don’t yet have to shuffle our feet when we walk, but it’s close.

A stack in the living room gets decorated for Christmas, but stays up year round.

 

 

Still, we bring more home.

About 10 years ago, Terri put aside her other materials and started making art with them. She does the recycling, and there’s a shipping container at the drop-off that’s been converted into a book bin/reading room, a place to give old books one last chance for salvation before they get tilled into the ground. She can’t resist.

Especially prized are outdated oddballs; usually not great books to begin with – full of questionable wisdom or low brow entertainment when new – and now merely quaint, if not downright strange. She removes the covers, rearranges the parts, and pieces them together to make something newly useful or interesting to look at.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Several years ago, she had a show of smaller, intricate pieces. That was followed by a series of large geometric quilts. Each phase has been accompanied by a collection of book purses, actual book bags. Now, after a little more than a year working in the basement, she has a series of medium sized pieces: tiles cut from covers, arranged as colorful mosaics in geometric grids. Something to show for it. And a show for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Friday is the opening at the Bridge PAI gallery in Charlottesville for her show Ex Ex Libris. It coincides with the weeklong Virginia Festival of the Book, when the town in swarming with bibliophiles.

Reception starts at 6pm. Y’all come.

 

 

 

2 Replies to “Something to Show for It”

  1. Hmmmmmm, I have two collections – one is about 2000 books on canoeing and kayaking and the other folding kayaks. There are also books on subjects connected with the origins of canoeing, ethnology, and the like. I just wish I could find time to read more fiction – my present read are stories by members of four and five master sailing ships who made it around Cape Horn. I do not think any of them are alive today….

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