Vadis Turner at Gallery NuLu

While doing some shopping on East Market this weekend I stumbled into the Vadis Turner exhibit at Gallery NuLu. Such a lucky find because this is a great exhibit that I hadn't heard a single thing about even though it opened October 5.

It's these kind of things that make me even more passionate about Consuming Louisville. Great, great things are going on in Louisville everyday but so many of us don't read the Courier (or are disappointed by what the Courier does and doesn't give coverage to) or wade through LEO or Velocity so we miss great events that those print publications cover. The flyer walls of coffee shops in the Highlands are great places for finding out about events but most days you just want to get your cappuccino and get out the door. Keeping up with online calendars of events? Arduous at best.

That's why Consuming Louisville is here: to help you quickly and easily find good things going on in town, good places to eat and good places to shop without spending your time poring over print or online publications.

The Vadis Turner exhibit is a very good thing going on in Louisville. People interested in any of the following should run, not walk to see the exhibit before it closes November 21: modern art, feminism, cultural criticism, mixed media works, kitsch, discussions on and artistic response to gender roles, fun art, fun art made of interesting objects.

Turner uses materials that make up the reality of womens lives, the flotsam and jetsam of every day. Twist ties, sponges, pantyhose, cotton balls, matchsticks, cellophane these are the sugar and spice that Turner uses for her box of chocolates. Office memo pads, calendar pages and take-out restaurant menus are quilted into testaments of the workday or sculpted into full-size gowns. Tabloids compete with works of fiction in other quilts and bobby pins explode into an installation. The works of Vadis Turner will make you smile in easy recognition, yet cringe at the ordinariness of it all.

- Description from another exhibition of Turner's work

That's a wedding cake made of tampons in the image there, just in case you missed that. Be sure not to miss the Sweet and Low gown at the very beginning of the exhibit. It's one of my favorite pieces.