Hi everyone – so the exhibition is now open and will be at the Dairy Barn in Athens, Ohio for the next 3 months until it is divided into three smaller touring groups to travel to museums and regional galleries.  Once again I was privileged to be present at the opening, always a special pleasure if you are one of the exhibitors; and I was delighted to meet fellow exhibitor from Perth Western Australia,  Ruth de Vos, and admire her finely pieced, dyed and screen printed  “Eucalyptus Spectacular”.  Margery Goodall, also  from Perth WA , showed a quartet of small quilts comprising her work “Earth Suite”,  intricately pieced abstracted landscapes which through colour and texture celebrate the harsh brown contintent of Australia.   Other Australians in the show are Pamela Fitzsimons and Glenys Mann.  Pamela’s piece, “Extinction Wrap” is a wonderful composition of sheer layers, of pieced and stitched hand dyed silk organza, suggesting decay to me – I don’t think I’d have made the habitat destruction and animal extinction connection without reading her statement, though.  Glenys Mann’s work was sombre, as befitting the title “Horizons #61:Memorial”, pondering a death as memorialised by a wreath image she observed.
 
There were some very exciting works, my personal favourites including Erin Wilson’s “Miscellany”, Kent Williams’ “Take Five” , Clare Plug’s “Antarctica Series: Out on the Barrier”, Christine Tedesco’s “Architectural Squares”, Patricia M Goffette’s “Haywire” and Bonnie Wells’ “Metaphysic”.  As usual there were several I honestly thought were not in the right venue, ie not up to the high standard of the others in terms of design or innovation, the kind of thing one can see in the breathless pages of  the ‘innovative’ sections of some art quiliting magazines and which are not new, regardless of how well composed the accompanying statement was.  No, I won’t single them out – make up your own mind  when you see the show or the catalogue.

A wide variety of technical expertise and interesting design inspirations expressed arists’ visions in this important exhibition of the quilt medium as art.  It’s not a quilt show, rather an art show in the quilted medium, something many, including self-styled quilt artists and aspirants, do not ‘get’ even yet, after 30 years of these biennials. Among the final selection were entries from a large number of countries outside the USA, reflecting Quilt National’s continued importance in the field of the art of the quilt internationally.

I have been to see many of the QN exhibitions and agree with one of this year’s jurors who expressed some disappointment that there were fewer large (ie bed-sized) quilts than ever this year, just a handful.  My own (below) at 37″x29″, 94x74cm is pretty small,  although it is not the smallest I have had on show there.  This year there seemed more small pieces than ever.

I am not sure what this trend says about the market for art quilts.  Many artists recognise that the their quilts compete directly in the market place with paintings, with which many have a common size range.  It is true that probably most collectors are not able to display large works in their offices or homes.  But I wonder whether there is not also a reluctance by the makers to invest the time and effort in the committment to a large project, the 2m-3m sized work that used to be more common in this exhibition.  I’m thinking of some stunning large works in past years by the late Sharon Heidingsfelder, Tim harding, Kyoung Ae Cho or Joan Lintault.  I think part of this has to do with the proliferation of computer aided design techniques, the ability to produce these designs quickly but only on a small scale outside a tertiary insitution studio, and the expansion of ‘surface design’ in the artform, narrowly interpreted to involve paints dyes and related technique, on the front of the quilt, thereby achieving designs rapidly and with great detail, that in the past took many painstaking hours by machine or hand stitch.

On the whole I felt the recipients of awards were worthy, they are on the website www.dairybarn.org  now, and our Aussie colleague Glenys Mann received an award for her persistence in entering repeatedly without making the cut until this time. Congratulations Glenys. There were some exhibitors who were successful years ago and appearing again at long last, and just over 50% were first time exhibitors. I think this augurs well for the future.

The catalogue is well worth reading for the interesting comments by each of the jurors, and some of the artist statements too were interesing.  But not all. My own view is that the best statement is a really good title, and  if a statement is really required it should be as brief as possible.  Clearly not everone has equal facility with words. One  or two artists made no accompanying statement, which I admire.  But the last time I did that, somehow my image was the only one left out of the exhibition catalogue, and I’ve always felt this was some petty move directly against my lack of comment. Some of the artist statements, IMHO, border on a self congratulating review, and many include technical details which again IMHO have no place in an artist statement.  As usual several are almost imcomprehensible statements supporting an interesting quilt design; and I think we could all benefit from wider discussion on the whole matter of statements.

However, the catalogue itself is subject of some negative comment, as this year the colour reproduction is very poor.  My own quilt comprises basically black organza over a cream background with organza strips wandering across it; in real life a bit reminiscent of a sepia photo, but on page 95 of my copy it shows as having a greenish cast.  Clare Plug (NZ)is disappointed that her work including shading from dark charcoal through greys to off white has definitely been presented as much darker and in shades of brown.  I could go on, but overall the images are dark, a bit dull, and disappointing.  If you don’t know the original this is not really bad, perhaps, but it doesn’t represent each work well.

Although this year’s collection did not feel as strong and did not excite me as much as some previous ones, I think Quilt National still holds it’s place as a premier event in the world of contemporary quilted fiber art.

I will be present in Athens OH this evening when the latest Quilt National exhibition opens.  It is the fourth time I have been juried into this prestigious collection, and I will be present at the opening, which is also pretty exciting. 

Of my previous QN quilts, ‘Ora Banda’ (1993)and ‘Obiri’ (1995) in the Colours gallery on my website, colour is an important component 0f the repeated units.  By the time of ‘Timetracks 1’  (2007) colour had taken a back seat  to texture, and really in this year’s quilt of black organza over metallic waxed leather squares against cream backing the effect is a bit like an old b/w photo as shape and texture have become more important in this series. The organza has been burned with a wood burning tool, and ends were left hanging dangling wherever they occurred – no point in tidying those up in view of the seriously ‘damaged’ surface and inner layers of the work and of course, the edges !  I don’t seem to get a reasonable size image of the detail on this site without going to photoshop and resizing the image – which will have to wait until I get back to my computer in Montevideo.

rock lines

I often take photos of  linear patterns in nature and man made objects that please me, and this one has probably been as influential as any on the quilting treatment I came up with for Ebb& Flow 14 posted below.  Man made objects tend to include straighter lines than nature.  In nature you can find rocks, cliffs, stones and pebbles, beaches, bodies of water from motionless to surging wildly; and plants and all their parts, animal shapes and their markings, are just some of the sources for inspiration there.  Man made objects range from the wooden, ceramic, textile, metal, glass, lather and more, with an infinite variety of patterning applied through anormous range of processes from digital computer aided  techniques and more traditional processes including but not limited to etching,  carving, painting, drawing, stitching, weaving,  printing knitting, embossing, dluing – I could go on.

My point today is, that in even in an environment you pass through every day there can be something really interesting at your feet, eye level or above if you just look.  It also pays to have either a piece of paper and pencil at hand at all times, or better still a little digital camera to capture what atchs your eye – and always take the highest resolution you can, too.   It’s a matter of opening your eyes.  One of my friends here says Montevideoans don’t look up as they walk along and so don’t appreciate the wonderful architectural details that are all around them in this city.  Well, that’s partly because of the hazardous state of many foot paths,  with missing or broken pavers,  and sections of paving pushed up by tree roots – but the trees are quite marvellous ,and there’s the tradeoff.  Other hazards include dog poop (not as bad as it used to be) horse droppings (there are fewer horse and cart people around, licences are being retired) or even heaps of what I used to think was not very well digested horse droppings- but it is the blobs of used (greenish) mate,  the tea-like infusion Uruguayans drink all day long.  There are set rituals associated with it, but they don’t seem to include thoughtful disposal of the leafy dregs – on the other hand, perhaps it is thoughtful to drop them right in the footpath where the unwary could step….

I was prompted to post by a blog I just visited, http://margaretsteinhauer.blogspot.com where this artist includes some of her wonderful photography that she  uses to inspire her art quilt designs.  What struck me looking at some of them just now was that I have similar pictures in my own files, especially including a dendritic  pattern left on sand by the receding tide.  Maybe she and I walked the same beach on the same day at much the same hour 🙂  (more…)

“Maelstrom” was my contribution to a 2009 exhibition ” A Change in The Weather” by members of a small group of Australian-New Zealand group of art quilters. The exhibition of original quilted textiles with a theme of global climate change, opened in Wellington NZ in June 2009, and travelled to Christchurch NZ before crossing to Australia where it was seen in several places after that.

My inspiration was the cartographic symbol used by weather forecasters to represent on maps the location and progress of the most violent storms – cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes in their relevant regions of Oceania, Asia and the Americas. The Earth is represented by the very dark green base fabric. The huge variety of colours translates into the gathering swirl of  information, problems and expert opinions on what needs to be done to help the world deal with and adapt to the changes in climate now taking place at an accelerating rate.  Red is a colour warning of danger, hence my choice for the hand quilted grid pattern. Interestingly, this statement written in 2009 could have been written today, suggesting change has been slow around the issue of climate change, according to reports from the recently concluded COP30 conference.

I’ve always loved this piece, even though I always felt it was an awkward shape we all had to make our pieces to, but think that was because some limitation of the display area available to that number of wall quilts in the gallery with which our organiser arranged the show. So in the next few days I’m going to re-size it to 50cm x 50cm, and mount it on a white canvas stretcher, and include it in my upcoming January 2026 exhibition. I personally love things mounted on white or painted stretchers without further framing, but with a standard size a new owner has the option to choose a frame that goes with their particular decor style or that matches a colour in their own couch, so to speak 🙂