Leni Wiener

I arrived back in the states last weekend, after a truly amazing experience teaching art quilting in Taiwan.  I have so much to share that I will do it in a series of posts.

After over 25 hours in transit, we arrived at our hotel in Tainan City in southern Taiwan.  Tainan is an interesting ciy, not like any other I have ever seen.  The storefronts are all like garage doors, so that when they open, the entire storefront is exposed to the outside.  The shops and restaurants literally spill into the street, making walking around difficult.  Scooters are the primary mode of transportation, and they are everywhere–and parked everywhere.

Randomly mixed in together are restaurants, hair salons, and mechanics shops, and interspersed with the occasional (and beautiful) small temples.

and some larger and more elaborate temples

Our first day in Tainan, we had an amazing breakfast in the hotel–a huge buffet of chinese, japanese and western breakfast items, and then went to see the Taiwan International Quilt Exhibit held at the National Arts Center.

The show takes up two floors of the building, and includes the work of many well known artists from the US and abroad, plus the work of Taiwanese artists.  The international artists were all invited to participate, the Taiwanese artists were juried.  Most of them are working in a style that combines pieced backgrounds and hand appliqued trees, nature scenes or local historic architecture.

Here is the exhibition coordinator, Hsin Chen Lin, president of the guild that organized the show (TAQS) next to one of her beautiful quilts.  On her right is I-Ying Lin, excutive director of TAQS.

One of the Taiwanese quilts that depict nature is “When Spring Returns” by Mei Hiu Lin.  Shu Chin Liu depicts this historic building (a popular theme in the show) in “Glory of Ancient Remains”

Another beautiful nature quilt is this one by Chen Chu Chen called simply “pond”

watch this blog for more daily posts about teaching in Taiwan.