Report from Oulu

This will just be a quick post.  Brian and I got home late last night from our fabulous trip to Oulu and Helsinki, Finland.  I'm exhausted, I need to unpack and the refrigerator is totally empty.  But I wanted to share just a little from my trip to Oulu for Quilt Visions: American Modern Quilt Art.  

The Oulu Museum of Art is a large, beautiful building set on the edge of Ainola Park.  In fact, from the hotel, it was a truly lovely walk.  On our first day in Oulu we visited the museum for a walk through of the exhibit.  And met Elina Vieru and Vuokko Isaksson, the curators of the exhibit,  and Anna-Rikka Hirvonen, the director of the museum.

In front of the museum 

Once inside, we found one of my pieces, Strip Study #2, hanging at the entrance to the exhibit.  Wow!

 And my quilts were all hanging together in Gallery C.  From the doorway it looked like it was my own private gallery, but it also included quilts by my friends Judith Larzerlere and Joe Cunningham.

 The next morning we did a walk through with the press:

We then had a private tour of the museum, which has a wonderful permanent collection:

Friday night was the opening. Four hundred people attended and the ceremony included speeches by Risto Vuoria, Director of Culture for the City of Oulu and Jeffrey Reaneau, Counselor for Press and Cultural Affairs at the US Embassy in Helsinki.

We were treated to a modern dance exhibition.  And spent several lovely hours meeting people and talking about our work.

More later!