As the annual Studio Art Quilt Associates benefit auction begins later this month, on Friday 12th September, I’m continuing this series of posts about the membership advantages that I particularly value from among the wide range of resources offered by this organisation. In today’s post I focus on exhibition opportunities for artist members, because a big portion of the SAQA’s budget is taken by exhibition costs which include documentation, catalogues, gallery costs and transportation costs of the travelling exhibitions. Members pay entry fees, of course, but these are only a small portion of the overall costs.

Since the formation of SAQA in 1989, the core mission of has been to publicise the art form of the quilted textile, and one of the main ways the organisation does this is through the exhibition programs for members. As a result of this history of SAQA art quilt exhibitions, today, a portion of memberships are maintained by some gallery and museum directors and other patrons of the arts in addition to those of currently practising textile artists and traditional quiltmakers looking to explore traditional quilt making.

SAQA members come from many different backgrounds. Some have had formal art education, and many (like myself) have not, but we all are looking for self expression through making quilted textile art, and at some point for various reasons, artists look for avenues to show their art to the world in art via galleries, art fairs, group and solo exhibitions. Many of us find these opportunities long before we become SAQA members; but to a novice art quilt maker, taking this step for the fist time can be intimidating. Wherever members are on the experience spectrum, it is likely that at least occasionally most of us will take advantage of an opportunity to exhibit in a juried SAQA exhibition of some kind – because there are several avenues:

• Virtual online curated exhibitions – I have work in https://www.saqa.com/art/online-galleries/drawn-lines-saqa-virtual-gallery and https://www.saqa.com/art/online-galleries/below-surface-saqa-virtual-gallery
• Regional group exhibitions – https://www.saqa.com/art/saqa-exhibitions/regional-exhibitions these depend on activity in members’ different regions – I’m the Latin American and Caribbean region and an exhibition is being organised for 2026 in this region.
• Global exhibitions which start somewhere in the USA and travel to appear in gallery, museum and high profile quilt show venues for between 2-3 years.

The SAQA website https://www.saqa.com has a great deal of information, guidance and tips on the business of exhibiting, including approaching galleries and submitting applications, the essentials of good photography, writing appropriate statements, and the business side of handling pricing, publicity and sales.

Complete information about the upcoming SAQA Benefit Auction including how to bid – it’s all online, from anywere in the world, and you do not need to be a member of SAQA to take part! All works on offer can now be viewed at the above link. The auction opens with Diamond Day on Friday, September 12 at 2pm EDT (GMT/UTC-4, New York Time). On Diamond Day, any piece is available for $1,000; the first bidder wins. The rest of this reverse-price auction is divided into three sections, with a new section open each Monday:

Section 1: Sept 15 – Sept 21
Section 2: Sept 22 – Sept 28
Section 3: Sept 29 – Oct 5

The annual benefit auction begins later this month, so I’m posting on several membership advantages that I’ve particularly valued from among the wide range of resources offered by this organisation. One special interest group is the Multi-Day Challenge SIG

I’ve been designing and making textile/fiberart for many years, and only rarely am I stumped with absolutely no idea of what I’ll do next, and only occasionally get stuck mid project. Back in the late 80s, though, I found it very helpful to join a group of quilters who were experimenting beyond traditional geometric P&Q, and moving into more personally inspired textile art. That group, Quilt Explorations, met monthly to accept the next challenge offered by one of our 15 or so members, and show and critique what we’d all done with the previous month’s challenge. By 1993, when we left town, Q.E. had turned into a critique group only, as most members were now following our own inspiration paths and didn’t need prompts provided by someone else’s challenge to create our art.

Today, with this post in mind, I googled “quilting challenges” and about 3rd or 4th down the page I found this an interesting blog, Online Quilting Magazine.com and read the article about challenges which includes this succinct summary of the whole challenge thing – “Joining a quilting challenge can be a fantastic way to hone your skills, gain new techniques and have fun with others who share your passion for quilting. As with any challenge, the main goal is to encourage you to try new things and branch out from your normal routine.”

SAQA runs at least two challenges a year. During the pandemic, 2021, with heaps more unstructured time at home than I was used to having, I realised this was a gift of time to explore new things in textile fibreart. In addition to joining StitchClub, later that year I took part in the 100 day SAQA Reboot Challenge. In 2019 I’d taken part for a while in a 30 day one, but got distracted and didn’t stay the course. However, with so much time it was easy to keep to my plan for 100 days. SAQA’s challenges are individual – the participant sets their own agenda, does at least something on it every day, and posts about it on that day’s album on the challenge’s private FB page. Part of participating is giving helpful or encouraging comments to others for what they’re doing. Over the course of those 100 days I made 100 x 3.25inch square mounted samples, and blogged several times about how I was doing, using the title “Very Small Pieces” https://www.alisonschwabe.com/weblog/?p=6891 through to “Very Small Pieces,#14” https://www.alisonschwabe.com/weblog/?p=7096 and the final one, “After the 100 Day Thing” showing some favourites from the 100! https://www.alisonschwabe.com/weblog/?p=7124

Handled by volunteer coodinators, such challenges use little of SAQA’s financial resources, but they do rely on the efficient ever-ready technical backup and support of the several salaried SAQA staff – my thanks to you all! @saqaart

The annual benefit auction for Studio Art Quilt Assciates, SAQA, begins in just over 2 weeks, on September 15th. This popular annual benefit auction helps fund various outreach programs of SAQA including the important touring exhibitions.

Nearly 400 works are offered for sale in this 3 week on line auction, and this year’s offerings include some wonderful works which you can see here My work “Out Of Order 4” is in section 2, which goes on sale September 22nd:

Bidding is only online, and bids can be placed from anywhere around the world simply by pre-registering here on Handbid . I recommend carefully reading how the auction works, plus all the tips and guidelines in advance to get the best from your auction experience. Decide if you absolutely must have one work that you’re prepared to pay $1000 for on Diamond Day, September 12th … and note that as I write today, regular collectors are already scoping out the works and compiling their lists of preferences and must haves – so good luck!

I’ve been donating these mini-quilts every year bar one since the auctions began, and it’s always a thrill to learn where my small work has gone to its new home, and perhaps this year I’ll be wecoming you as one of my newest collectors!

Occasionally since the late 80s I have turned to making something in 3D, and recently presented a talk to SAQA 3D Special Interest Group to show those works. Since that talk and the Q&A dicussion generated, I’ve been thinking of doing more in 3D, and am currently stuffing suffolk puffs of various materials, including fibreglass, to assemble into an entry for the 3rd glass+textile exhibition next February (entry conditions at salonartevidriotextil@gmail.com)

I did a quick update browse on Pinterest this morning – that algorithm does produce quite a bit of uninteresting stuff, but I’ve always likened it to browsing through exhibition catalogues as it occasionally throws up some interesting ideas in a wide range of media. For example, when I saw this one this morning, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/454019206204303580/ , “Anointed Rank” by Mary Giles, I stopped browsing, began thinking, and pinned it to my 3D board for several reasons… It reminded me of the earliest childhood stage of drawing people as blobs with a few attached straight lines which I learned about last year are known as tadpole people Back then I mused I’d love to explore this idea, and posted this quick doodle to remind me –

And this morning I began thinking that I should make some explorations of tadpole people in 3D.