I am so glad that Susan and Sue enjoyed Pierre's class and the visit to the Ratti. It was great fun. I found Pierre's lecture about his work fascinating. I have to say that I was interested to hear about how an artist who supports himself with his art interacts with his gallery. I especially enjoyed the story about how after making a large artwork using dice as the unit of construction, his gallery asked him to do another one. It was a reminder about how artists need to sell their work, and galleries need to have work that people will buy. One of my objectives in the Lace, not Lace show was to publicize the artists with the hope that galleries, collectors and sales would follow, since an artist has to live on something. Hearing about Pierre's process in transforming a brush painting of a crow into a lace work, an exercise he performed specifically for this class to demonstrate how he works was quite illuminating. The sampler was well conceived to take you through a number of design challenges. I have to say that I did not progress as far as I could have with the sampler because at a certain point I was making reservations at restaurants and adding new people, and contemplating the intricacies of getting everyone into the Ratti via a variety of transportation, including a car pool. Thank you to our intrepid drivers! The first night, the Hunterdon Art Museum was holding one of its pop-up dinners which are fundraisers, and Pierre was a special guest. These dinners are very nice, held in the gallery and catered by a local caterer. I realize that the hundred dollar price tag was a deterrent to many of the participants who opted instead for a simple meal, but for that quality of food, and wine and no additional tax and tip, it is actually a bit of a bargain for the New York/New Jersey area and those of us who attended enjoyed the event, with the end of the table occupied by the Brooklyn Lace Guild being the most jolly half. The following night my husband and I planned to take Pierre to the Clinton House Inn, an historic inn dating to the 1700s which was once a stage coach stop and is located just across the historic bridge from the museum. Mentioning this plan to others in the class as an option the reservation quickly grew and in the end I think we were 16 for dinner. They gave us our own room and there was a lot of energy as people discussed the class. The following night I had thought that those of us who were traveling back to Clinton by car should sit out the traffic in Caffe Grazie, an Italian restaurant near the Metropolitan Museum where my husband and I often wait out the traffic. Once again the guest list exploded and the two tables of 6 that had been reserved for us had to have additional chairs brought by the willing wait staff. In all these dinners a state of high hilarity prevailed. It has always been my dream to have the equivalent of a salon where people who are interested in lace art are able to socialize and interact and I feel like this was certainly one of the highlights. Of course, we all knew each other from previous lace courses with many people having memories of visiting Ithaca for the annual Finger Lakes Lace Guild weekend for decades. The Brooklyn Lace Guild held their monthly meeting on April 13th and Pierre was able to attend. We had our usual wine fueled fun, with me bringing items of 17th and 18th century lace from my collection which we were able to view with the Olloclip, a magnifier that clips to your phone. The beauty of looking at non-museum lace is the opportunity to put the magnifier directly on it. One of the members had seen Pierre's work that was on display in New York in 2014, which was pleasant. Pierre had never been to New York, but his work had, and was known. Today, the Brooklyn Lace Guild is going to have a viewing of lace at the Ratti which was actually planned before Pierre came. But since, Pierre is still in town, he will join us. Then, if I understand correctly, we will move in an unruly mass onward to the Guggenheim museum which is open late tonight to see an exhibit of the work of a pioneering woman artist Hilma af Klint which is unrelated to lace. Living my best life... Devon PS. I am told by Pierre and Marjorie, the director of the Hunterdon Art Museum, that they want to do this again next year! Pierre is thinking about how to design a course that will be interesting to those people who took this year's course as well as newcomers.
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