Thursday, August 7, 2008

Awards

Laeta Acus
A folded book with six pages of text and six small samplers.

Receiving an award is like getting a Hershey's Kiss after eating your favorite dinner. A sweet, delicious ending to a good delicious meal.

At the end of this month I go the the Embroiderers' Guild of America national seminar in Louisville, KY. When I made plans to go to this seminar a year ago this time, I knew I was going to receive an award for completing Mastercraftsman Color. This is a pretty big deal. Mastercraftsman in whatever category takes at least two and a half years to complete. There are a lot of different, twitchy little hoops to jump through along the way. The six parts to this long test have to be completed to the satisfaction of three judges. If the person is still coherent after these hard years she gets an award at national seminar and gets to call herself a master of embroidery. All well and good.

I made arrangements to come to this seminar, as I said, a year ago. But I was not alone in all this. My chapter and my region backed me up. To both of these entities I am eternally grateful. Sandia Mountains Chapter gave me a scholarship of $400 to attend. All they ask back is an hour if my time further down the road and that I go to one meeting at the national seminar, the general business meeting. Rocky Mountain Region gave me $250 in scholarship monies. All it wants in return is a write-up on the classes I am to take. I can't express enough how much I appreciate the generosity of chapter and region. Without those monies I could not have attended at all.

Meanwhile I have been on the 19th National EGA Exhibit committee. This is a tremendous effort to jury in fifty or sixty works of the best embroidered art in the country. It takes over two years to put together the exhibit. Along with the eight committee members, several other people have joined in to help, including three jurors, printers, advisers, etc. The culmination of this is the opening reception at national seminar for the exhibit. After it shows at EGA National Headquarters for three months, it travels around the country to museums and other venues for another two years. As I say, this is a tremendous undertaking.

I play a very small part in all of this as Awards Chairman for the 19th National Exhibit. But I also entered the show and was juried in with one piece of art, Laeta Acus. I was lucky to get in the show at all. Only half to a third of all work entered was accepted. Thirteen ribbons/prizes were given out by the jurors who went on to judge the show. There were two grand prizes, one for excellence in needlework and one for best contemporary needlework; three jurors' awards--the favorites of the each juror; and nine region awards--the best from nine of the thirteen regions within EGA.

Much to my astonishment and surprise, Laeta Acus won the Rocky Mountain Region Award. So at national I will be recognized as one of the prize winners. But the real Hershey's Kiss came yesterday in the mail. Laeta Acus won one of the Jurors' Awards too. I am thrilled, amazed, and very humbled.

Laeta Acus is a small folded book with twelve pages. All the odd-numbered pages are the story of a little girl, Laeta Acus, learning embroidery from her mother. She completes six samplers in six different counted techniques. The small samplers, all about 2.5" X 4", are on the even-numbered pages. By the way, Laeta Acus means happy needle in Latin.

1 comment:

BLW said...

Looking great, Mom! This little book is beautiful - I can remember when you were making it. Congratulations on your awards - you deserve each and every one, and many more.