Tien Chiu

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Magical moments

Me arriving at the museum:

Tien arriving at the American Textile History Museum
Arriving at the American Textile History Museum

…and with my dress, at the exhibit!

Tien with her wedding dress at the museum exhibit
Me with my wedding dress!

I’m pleased to say that it had a place of honor – it was the central focus of its corner of the room, flanked by two or three dresses to either side. Also had a poster of me in the dress! visible in the top right of the photo. (The poster photo was taken by Joe Decker, the photo itself by Mike.)

The white corsage indicates that I was one of the brides with a dress in the exhibit.

Here’s a photo of the plaque in front of the exhibit, with a very lovely photo of us at the wedding, courtesy of Jen Michelsen of A Girl and a Camera Photography:

plaque in front of Tien's wedding dress
plaque in front of my wedding dress

They even had a little tablet computer set up with excerpts from my blog!

my blog at the museum!
my blog at the museum!

…and, finally, the “reason for the season”: me and my very beloved Mike in front of the exhibit. Here’s to many years more!

 

Tien and Mike at museum exhibit
me and Mike at museum exhibit

 

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Flown the nest

This morning the fine arts shippers arrived to cart off the wedding dress. It is, at long last, on its way to its new home – the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts.

I’m not quite sure what to think. On the one hand, I love that piece dearly, as only a person who has lavished a thousand hours on a single piece can. And it’s my wedding-dress, something of great sentimental value. On that level, I hate to part with it.

On another level, though, I’m very pleased. I know that this piece, that I love so dearly, will be preserved beyond my lifetime. And it will be shared with more people this way. And, of course, it is a great honor for any artist to get a piece into a museum.

And, on a purely banal level, I’m thrilled to have that gigantic box out of my living room.  It did take up a lot of space!

So anyway, my wedding dress is all grown up and flown away. I can’t wait to visit it in its new home next spring!

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Museum quality

I am pleased to say that the American Textile History Museum wants my wedding dress for their permanent collection!  I’m happy, and honored.  It will be a real wrench to part with it, but I’m glad to know that its future is secure.  Since I have no children (and no intentions of any), I’ve been unsure what will become of it when I die.  (Horrifying visions of garage sales, etc.)  I’m glad it will now have a permanent home.

Meanwhile, in weaving-land, I have finished threading the 10/2 cotton warp and am halfway through sleying the reed.  Threading was a snap!  It turns out that 10/2 cotton is much faster to thread than 60/2 silk, probably because it’s easier to identify and separate the individual threads.  I was threading up at only 8 seconds a thread!  (Usually it’s more like 10-12.)  With only 300 threads that’s only 2400 seconds, or about 40 minutes to thread the entire scarf.  I finished it in a single sitting between dinner and bed.  Absolutely amazing.  Almost makes me want to work with thicker threads!  (Not that I plan to do so anytime in the imminent future.  Fine threads may take four times as long, but the results they produce are simply stunning.)

I have also finished the last little bits of the garden – planted two pepper plants yesterday and transplanted the mint from smaller containers to larger ones.  I now have two large, long containers (3-4 feet long and 12 inches wide), one of spearmint and one of peppermint.  This is definitely overkill – I only use a few sprigs a week – but I love mint and it tends to get potbound in small containers.  Maybe I’ll make mint ice cream this summer!

I also helped set up the boards for the Special Sample Service at CNCH.  This is a CNCH tradition where members donate samples to be sold at CNCH – a fundraiser for CNCH and a chance for conference goers to get a wide array of samples for relatively low prices.  The samples are lovely and I urge you to visit the Special Sample Service booth at CNCH.  (And to send in samples for the next CNCH!)

Today the plan is to finish warping the scarves, and modify the drafts I chose to make them weavable on a 24-shaft straight twill threading.  Mike and I are also going to break up the concrete patio slab that is currently crowding the lemon tree, and I’ll put in some more pavers to replace it, in the parts that need replacing.

Speaking of the lemon tree, the advice I got from the local nursery is not to prune it until winter, so all in all, I think I’ll leave out the pruning for now, except to get rid of deadwood.  I think eventually I will get rid of the worst crossing branches, but I don’t plan to prune it anywhere near as drastically as a “normal” fruit tree – from everything I’ve read, citrus doesn’t need a whole lot of pruning.

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And the winners are…

Tien walking the aisle
Walking the aisle, cropped and rotated

I decided to take Michelle’s advice and try cropping and rotating the walking-the-aisle shot.  And wow!  What a difference.  I had to fill in the bottom left part of the photo using the Clone stamp, but I don’t think it’s super-noticeable (please tell me if it is!) – and I like it much better than the photo with the harp now.  (Look at the larger version of the photo – the detail isn’t obvious in the small version.)  The harp photo is a bit over-exposed on the dress – the walking-the-aisle shot shows better detail and much more dynamic movement.  This is important since, at Convergence, people will have the dress in front of them, but they won’t be able to see how the outfit moves, except in the photo.

Here’s the harp again to compare:

tien with harp
me with harp

And, even after cropping, I didn’t like the photo of me and Mike standing as much as I did the photo of us seated, so I’ll be using the second photo:

tien and mike
Me and Mike

I may crop it a bit so it’s more vertical, though – I need to figure out how to fit them into a suitable display format, as one is vertical and the other is horizontal.

Our plane is about to board for the return flight to San Francisco, so I won’t try for more right now.  Soon we’ll be back home, where the cats will no doubt be overjoyed to see/sit on us.  Vancouver’s been great fun, but (clicks shoes together) there’s no place like home.

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Puzzling over photos

Our wedding photographer has been hard at work, reviewing and pulling the cream-of-the-crop photos out for our viewing.  It will still be a few weeks before she has the complete set together, but she gave us the proofs for review a day or two ago.  Because I’ll need a few photos for the Convergence exhibit, I asked her to send me a few in advance of the full batch.  Here they are:

Tien walking down the aisle
Me, walking down the aisle
Tien with harpist
me next to the harpist
Tien and Mike (formals)
Me and Mike (formals)
2nd shot of Tien and Mike (formals)
me and Mike again

I’m still debating which photo(s) to send to Convergence.  I figure I might be able to get one, two at most into the display (if any go in at all, which I don’t know yet).  There should really be one of me by myself (showing off the dress) and one of me and Mike (the happy couple).  So, one of the first two, and one of the last two.  But I really can’t decide.  The first photo is the most dramatic (walking down the aisle), the second photo is a better shot of the dress.  And I can’t pick between the second two at all.

Given that this would be an exhibit display for a major weaving conference (i.e. Convergence), which photo or photos would you pick?  I really haven’t a clue, so thoughts would be most appreciated.

Mike and I have been having fun in Vancouver, despite a twisted ankle that is keeping us from more strenuous activities.  But we’ve been to museums, the Vancouver aquarium, the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens, a salmon hatchery, and quite a few other places – plus had dinner and some wonderful conversation with some local weavers yesterday night.  We fly home tomorrow – and, true to form, our last stop is going to be a well-known chocolate shop.  🙂