Friday evening in Philadelphia and Kyrgyzstan

On Friday evening, we decided to do something brave/foolhardy.  We took the children to the private view of From Quilts to Couture in Kyrgyzstan at the Collins Gallery in Glasgow. 

We were entertained on our way there by seeing the centre of Glasgow transformed into one giant film set for a big movie called World War Z (I was corrected from saying ‘zed’ to ‘zee’ – it sounds better in American!).  Glasgow is standing in for Philadelphia and it was funny seeing US traffic lights and newspaper stands and street signs.  Spying my old office transformed into the US Court House was slightly surreal.  I’m not sure who were more entertained – the children or us!

Going from Glasgow to the States to Kyrgyzstan in the space of 5 minutes was rather strange.  However, when we made it into the gallery, I was really pleased we had made the effort.  The work was magnificent.  The inlaid felt in strong patterns and bright colours were stunning and beautifully executed as well.  Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to take any photos of it as I was trying to stop any major child disaster: knocking the work over; eating all of the interesting looking snacks and whining about not wanting to be there!  These are snaps of some of the little toys they had for sale. 

If you are able to go, I would strongly recommend the exhibition. The Collins with Laura Hamilton has put on loads of interesting shows since I moved back up north and it is a terrible shame it is under threat of closure from Strathclyde University who own it.