Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery Holiday Jury Day

Monday November 15 was the jury day for our Holiday Treasures Show. The Potomac Fiberarts Gallery is a coop gallery that exhibits about 10 entirely new shows of fiberart each year. At the end of a show, all work is removed from the gallery and new work is submitted to a jury process before entering the gallery for the new show. Each piece is individually juried to maintain quality and relevance to fiber or a fiber technique.

The gallery is first emptied of all outgoing work.

Then the gallery is cleaned and prepared for new incoming items.Display committee member Paige Garber is sweeping the floors as Clara Graves prepares hat racks.

The jury tables are set up in the corridor outside the gallery. Racks and bags contain members work awaiting checking in which is done on the tables to the right and left. The center table seats two members of our jury committee who collaborate on passing decisions on each item. While the jurors present for the holiday show are our own members, several times a year, we invite guest jurors to gain a fresh insight. The holiday show is also our largest show in terms of number of items entered. Therefore this jury process is repeated at a second location with a second set of jurors and accessory people. I will only be showing you one. The jurors are ready to go.

Incoming work awaiting jurying.

Members Lynn Hoffman and Bev Ringel check items against inventory sheets.

Roz Houseknecht hold incoming art pieces up for the jurors to see.

Jurors Carol Holmes and Janet Stollnitz make tough decisions.

Works start coming in to the gallery.

The jury process continues.

The gallery fills.

By about 2-3PM, the jury process is finished and the gallery opens for business with a fresh new selection of fiber art and art to wear selections. Scarves and shawls:

More scarves, jackets, vests and other wearables:

Wall Art:

Purses, hats, gloves, handmade books, pillows, and more:

Jewelry, brooches, earrings, barrettes, bracelets, necklaces:

Jewelry cases for the special pieces:

We are open 10AM-6PM daily and weekends, Thursday 11AM-9PM. There will be a special Holiday Open House throughout the Torpedo Factory Art Center on December 2 from 6-9PM.We welcome your visit. Until next blog when I will continue my discussion of stitched beadwork with an introduction of brick stitch. Joanne

Featured Artist: Fran Spaeder

The third gallery member earning a juror's recognition for our current show, "The Child Within", is Fran Spaeder. She made a collection of colorful bags for children. Not only is the fabric colorful, the outside of each bag has built-in pockets just the right size for those all-important crayons!

"Among my favorite childhood memories," Fran says, "was getting a new box of crayons with those perfectly shaped points and a new coloring book. I loved the time spent coloring as a child and then with my 2 sons and now with my 3.5 grandsons. So my patchwork bags hold not just crayons but many fond memories. "

Fran definitely loves color, and her playful personality shines through in everything she creates. Here's a quilt from one of our shows earlier this year. Makes me want to go color!