Wall of Keys now at Mouse House!

 (The Wall of Keys ... now at Mouse House!)

Since returning from Birmingham England and this year's Festival of Quilts, I've been busy!  I lugged home all forty-five+ pounds of The Wall of Keys in two suitcases. Before taking this installation to England, most of it hung in my studio at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios.  But I made 500 more keys while at my Anderson Center art residency in May. A bigger wall was needed.  So, I decided to hang it at Mouse House!

 

(Above:  Mouse House, 2123 Park Street in the historic Elmwood Park area of Columbia, South Carolina.)

Steve and I live upstairs.  Downstairs is zoned commercial and functions as our business.  What do we do? Limited custom picture framing.  What else is at Mouse House?  My art ... now including The Wall of Keys.  Steve patched and sanded the wall.  I touched up the paint ... and then spent an entire day driving 1800+ nails into it, one per tagged key!  It looks great!

(Above:  The Wall of Keys ... last week at The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England  ... part of the Through Our Hands exhibition.)

It was so much fun to watch people looking at all the keys and snapping photos.  This group had no idea that I was behind them ...

... taking photos of them as they looked at all the keys.  I wonder which one each would have selected?  The Key to Happiness?  The Key to Knowledge?  The Key to Success?  The Key to the Remote Control or the Bathroom or to a Long Life?

It was fun watching people snap photos of the keys too!

Another thing I've done is to harvest poke berries.  Every year Steve has a "pet weed".  It is almost always a poke berry plant.  This year ... he let two of them grow!

I've tried poke berries for natural dyeing in the past.  They didn't work well but I'll try again!  Today, after picking all the ripe berries, I took down the plants and hauled them to the front of the house to be taken away with the rest of the block's landscaping debris!  Next year, Steve can have another "pet weed".  This year, he's done! LOL!

I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Fridays", a site for sharing fiber artwork!

The Wall of Keys as seen at The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England was funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives supported from the National Endowment of the Arts and a generous award from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.