I am excellent!

TheProperMeansInvestigatingTruththe proper means of investigating truth, approx. 40 x 108 inches    ©2014 Deidre Adams
found papers, dressmaker’s pattern tissue, thread

Does my post title sound obnoxious? I’m working on getting better at horn-tooting, but there’s a fine line between believing in yourself and beating people over the head with it.

Last October, I wrote about some new work that I started during my residency at the Vermont Studio Center (here). I’ve continued to work on these, and when the call for entries for Form, Not Function came up this year, I decided I was ready to release some of it out into the world. Fortunately, they agreed, and the work was accepted into the show.

Yes, I know you’re supposed to make the work only for yourself and not care what anyone thinks. In fact, that is how I felt when I was making these. But on the other hand, I really don’t want to make my work in a vacuum. And this work is so different for me, and for anyone who’s familiar with my work, that I wasn’t sure how it was going to be received.

So it certainly was a pleasant surprise to be notified that I had received an award at the exhibition — the Award of Excellence in Memory of Textile Artist Alma Lesch, presented by DELvelopment Foundation. I found out from a lovely voice mail message, which also said that the piece had been the subject of a lot of discussion. I can’t imagine anything nicer to hear about one’s work. So yay!

TheProperMeansInvestigatingTruth-det1

the proper means of investigating truth, detail