Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Side Trip

We had our bi-monthly (Does that mean every other month? Or twice a month? I can never remember which is which. Anyway, we meet every other month.) Art Quilts Maine meeting on Saturday. It was a wonderful way to spend the day. The drive to Monmouth was lovely. I've never been that direction. (We're still pretty new to Maine.)

I especially enjoyed passing by the shop in someone's garage that sold "Yarn and Soap," lots of lilacs in bloom, sweeping vistas with hills and lakes, rocks!, a crumbling brick house foundation with chimney still standing, and charming small towns.

At lunch time, one of our members took us on a little field trip to Cumston Hall. The building was recently restored at a cost of 1.8 million. It holds the town library, city offices and a stunning theatre, the home of the Shakespeare Theater of Maine. (I tried to get a bit more history of the building to tell you, but their website was down. Oh well. Check back later.)

Cumston Hall, Monmouth, Maine


Penny was asked to create a quilt to honor people who made donations to help fund the restoration. She was asked to incorporate stained glass into her quilt. (Talk about multi-media...) So, here's Penny and her beautiful quilt. The outer border is actually real stained glass with names of donors imprinted on each panel. The quilt is mounted on top of the glass and the whole thing is constructed inside that wooden frame which also includes a light so the glass is glowy and beautiful. The windows in the buildings are cut out so you can also see real stained glass behind them.



Then Penny took us upstairs to see the newly restored theatre. Every where you look there are fancy curly-cues, relief sculptures, paintings, luxerious curtains, high tech lighting and sprinkler systems and tatooed actors milling about. Here is a picture of the amazing ceiling at the Theater at Monmouth.



Isn't it amazing what little treasures are just sitting out and about our big country? I didn't even know this building or theater (or quilt) existed. I'm thrilled that I got to experience it.

We also had a wonderful fabric painting workshop before lunch. I'll post pix of that tomorrow.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So - when shall we go and take a second look? Beautiful & amazing! Mom