MPavilion – Opening and Reveal

What fun this week has been! I went into Melbourne on Thursday night for the official opening of MPavilion – the 10th year that an architect designed pavilion has been designed and created in the gardens of Victoria for the public to enjoy all by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation. Read all about MPavilion here.

It was soooo good to see the Tadao Ando’s pavilion – it is a lovely structure and the light and water were a delight!

The circle floats above the pavilion looking a bit like a thin space craft!

Inside the pavilion the circle is a wonderful ‘roof’ to get shade or protection from rain and a lovely place to gather and chat!

And half of the inside of the pavilion is water! It was delightful! The reflections, the shimmering on the underside of the circle above… the window slit giving a glimpse of the outdoors and people going by…. it was wonderful!

And from outside peeking in, a wonderful play of light and curves – I really liked the pavilion designed by Tadao Ando.

And now onto the quilts! You can read about the MPavilion Quilt Challenge here and there are bios of everyone of us quilters who had their designs selected!

“A blend between conceptual art and quilting, the quilts were imagined as something practical for people to enjoy throughout the season for free as they read, drink a coffee, or catch up with friends.
The designs are all based on the same set of instructions from Studio Ongarato, inspired by the design of Tadao Ando’s structure and MPavilion’s graphic identity. Each quilt represents the quilter’s subjective interpretation of those instructions.”

Each of the quilts will be highlighted on the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild’s socials over the summer, but here is my quilt now as I can’t wait to show you!!

I focussed in on the rectangular window that was mentioned in Tadao Ando’s design (we hadn’t seen the actual design, just his design notes) – I wanted that to be central to the quilt and I used a print for that inner rectangle that was like peeking out into nature from the pavilion. We were allowed to use one print fabric in our designs and I was the only one who did so!

The walls that are mentioned in Tadoa’s design I envisaged as having four rectangular ‘planks’ in the different colours. Where they overlap / are in front of the window frame I have attempted, to the limited colour palette available, some transparency effect.

The partial circles represent the paper plates of the people sitting on the quilt and using it for their lunch whilst enjoying the views of the pavilion and the many events that will be held there!

This was such a step out of the norm for me…. working to a brief, working to a very tight (and immovable!) deadline, my first attempt at custom quilting and with rulers no less, since my broken wrist(s).

So I am so very pleased that it is finished and ‘out there’ in the public realm!

All our quilts will be available to the public to use and this is the label that Tara (@stitchandyarn) had to sew onto all of our quilts!! (picture from Tara’s Instagram)

I hope if you are in Melbourne over the summer that you can get a chance to wander down to the Queen Victoria Gardens (which are just over the Yarra from the CBD and across the road from the Arts Centre) and check out MPavilion and enjoy the scenery and our quilts! There is an amazing program of free events continuing on all summer!

And here is a pic of me, Tara and Tania enjoying catching up and seeing MPavilion!

And as the formal part of the evening finished and the chatting and socialising began…. TaikOz drummers started playing! The world indeed is small…. my cousin, Ian Cleworth is one of the founders of TaikOz and plays regularly with them, sadly he wasn’t amongst the players on Thursday. If ever you get a chance to see TaikOz play, go! They are amazing – the drummers are phenomenal!

And one last picture (I took sooo many!) – a lovely kimono worn on the evening.