What a difference a day makes!

By Eva Fognell, Curator of the Eugene & Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art

What a difference a day makes!

My colleague, Chris Rossi,  and I were just in Dallas deinstalling our traveling exhibition Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Dallas Museum of Art. Dallas was dry and had a light smell of smoke in the air from the terrible fires that were burning in parts of the state. The drought was visible as I flew into the Dallas /Forth Worth airport and the city looked exhausted from the heat wave.

All went well when we took down and packed up the exhibition. I left Chris to finish up the last day of packing by herself while I flew to Naples Grand Resort in Florida to present a paper at the Embroidery Guild of America’s International Embroidery Conference. My paper was entitled THE EMBROIDERY OF THE AMERICAS AND INFLUENCE OF COLONIALIZATION.

So what difference a day makes. Look at this view out my hotel room in Naples! The Embroiders Guild sure knew where to hold a conference.

This may be where they dispose of presenters they don’t like? ☺

My talk was on moosehair embroidery on birchbark. I presented my paper on the opening night of the conference. It was followed by a dessert reception on the terrace.

The following 2 days were filled with interesting and lively presentations on various topics. My favorite might have been on the huipil embroidered blouse tradition made by Maya women in Guatemala.

Look at this beauty. Over 60 embroidered birds on this blouse. The little parrots sitting there in a row may be my favorites.

A very interesting and varied work week!