Foothills Arts Council
Bridget Groce’s kindergarten class from Elkin Elementary visited the Foothills Arts Council to view the “Pocketful of Posies” exhibit during it’s last week on display.
Foothills Arts Council
Leighanne Martin Wright, executive director of the Foothills Arts Council, reads to Elkin Elementary students during their visit.
Pocketful of Posies, a traveling exhibit on the works of nationally known Salley Mavor, gave the Foothills Arts Council exposure to the arts.
Pocketful of Posies has won the 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Picture Book and the Golden Kite Award for picture book illustration from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
According to the arts council, Salley Mavor’s exhibit was the most attended display in recent years.
The full patterns and creative objects in the illustration were all sewn together by hand with a needle and thread, according to Mavor.
When asked why she doesn’t use a sewing machine, Mavor responded, “Throughout history, up until the sewing machine was introduced, people did the most intricate, beautiful needlework … my devotion to the process and a desire to create and manipulate objects and materials in my hands … I can’t achieve the result I want with a machine, which looks automated and flat to me.”
The colors for each illustration were made with natural plant dyes on wool felt, according to Mavor.
Mavor spent three years hand-stitching the illustrations, combining needlework, wool felt and incorporated objects from nature such as acorn caps, shells and driftwood.
Mavor works in her home studio on Cape Cod, in Falmouth, Mass.
“I think it’s cute,” said Elkin resident Julie Newmark, who was at a jam packed opening night with her grandmother visiting from Hungary. “I like how she uses an earthy concept.”
The exhibit ran for over a month.
Mrs. Groce’s kindergarten class from Elkin Elementary visited the Foothills Arts Council to view the “Pocketful of Posies” exhibit during it’s last week on display.
According to field trip organizers, the children identified matierials and items such as sea shells, tree bark and acorn tops that created the characters’ hats, furniture and other objects found in the pictures.
Leighanne Martin Wright, executive director for the Foothills Arts Council, read from Salley Mavor’s book and showed the class some of the scenes that were not present in the exhibit.
The book is on back order at Dianna’s Bookstore but can be viewed there or at the Foothill’s Arts Council even though the exhibit has traveled on to California by way of Massachusetts.
“I am pleased that the exhibit went so well,” said Mavor.
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