The Marion Price Textile Guild was formed to honor our mentor and teacher, Marion Gene Price who inspired many students in Fresno, California from 1963-1989.Marjorie McWilliams and Charlotte Graham met Marion while students at California State University, Fresno. He was an avid weaver, gardener, landscape designer, and cigar aficionado. He often took students under his wing who wanted more "hands on" experience with larger floor looms or who simply wanted to learn how to dye using organic materials and the more traditional methods of dyeing with natural materials. Marion inspired us to "rise above the common levels of mediocrity" and to make "art from the heart". For me personally, he was the first True Artist I have ever known. Many of you have asked to see the pictures we have of Marion so since we do not have a web site (yet) for the MPTG, I decided at least we could blog about it until Mike can make the web site.This first picture (above) Marion gave me in 1976 when I spotted it on the mantle of the Clovis house. It was his fraternity picture from college.
I love this picture. This was taken at our wedding. Here he is toasting the bride and groom. The speech was long winded and full of colorful language as you can imagine.
Here we are in 1978 in Marion's backyard. This is close to "the loom room" which was off to my left.
Here we are in the front after one of the last visits to his house before it burned. He was such a fabulous gardener. This was taken in 1988. I will look around and see if i can find a picture of the actual house. I think I have one of "the loom room" too but it's buried in all the other pictures so it will go in a future posting.
This is the last picture I have of Marion. It was taken at the opening of one of my textile shows in Santa Barbara. He looked so great even up until his final days. He died 2 months later. It was 1989. (He is the man in the glasses behind the guy in the sunglasses.)
Members of the MPTG include Charlotte Graham- wearable arts, Marjorie McWilliams-textile artist and teacher, Mary Bailey-paper art and teacher, Isabel Bartolome-quilter, Dena Bartolome-quilter and writer, Laurie Cagle-edible arts, Mary Elmstrom-watercolorist, Marcail McWilliams-textile artist, Jill Plumb-computer arts instructor, Cindy Snider-woodworker.
Membership is limited to 10 people who have a passion for excellence and for the making of art from the heart. Meetings are held once a year in Carmel, California in January. This year's theme: Goals and Dreams. See you there!
