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:
“Out of Order 4” 2025. 12″sq, 30cm sq. Monoprinting, hand stitch and hand quilting. (It is actually very square – just my poor photo)
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)
A bird in flight, approx 25cm x 18cm x 2.5cm. SAQA 3D Special Interest Group will soon discuss what constitutes 3D v 2D…
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 –
Tadpole people – early childhood drawings of human figures.
And this morning I began thinking that I should make some explorations of tadpole people in 3D.
A really interesting exhibition of artisan crafted theatrical masks opened last week in Montevideo, and will be showing in the Estela Medina Gallery at the Teatro Solis, Tuesdays through Sundays, 5pm to 7pm, until the end of October. You could add it to the itinerary for an afternoon in the city, or go early as a prelude to an evening at the theatre. I was too unwell to attend the opening, but visited the exhibition the following weekend, so parking was easy, right at the theatre itself, which is not the case mondays to fridays 🙂
Entries could be on any theme, with free choice of materials and techniques. Works had to be sized within 40cm x 40cm x 15cm, and were limited to 1.5kg weight maximum. I’m proud to have my own entry selected, and it’s hanging mid-wall at one end of the innermost part of the gallery:
On the Saturday we went, there were a few people wandering in and out while we were there, so it was relatively easy to photograph each one with the artists’ statements or technical information. More than half the masks were made by Uruguayan artists; then there were entries from Chile, Argentina, Mexico and I was listed as Australian Uruguayan – nice! In addition, the international selectors were each invited to submit a mask, as were several professors and people involved in theatre arts here in Uruguay. It’s very impressive how the 50 artists outside that invitees group chose an incredible array of techniques and materials in answering the call. I’ve already described mine in full here, so won’t repeat all that, but let me share my favourites from this wonderful show.
Ana Lucia Vaiture and Maria Jose Penone UY. “Raices Ancestrales”.(Ancestral Roots) Their inspiring statement roughly translates as: ‘Her face is not carved but woven with patience and inherited knowledge, sprouting branches symbolising expanding minds and bonds of ritual. Each stitch combines body, identity, and territory in a living weaving as a textile metaphor for the carefully tended ancestral roots.
“Animal” Oliver Gimenez UY. With the brief title and list of materials and technique, I love how the viewer has total freedom to interpret it. This creature does look very like ET, the extra-terrestrial in that 1982 sci-fi classic, but perhaps it’s a sloth with horns? Those eyes are particularly piercing… Intriguing and I LOVE it.
“Ghost”, Doreen Bayley UY. Inspired by the movie of that name, Doreen used sheer and loose woven fabrics to depict the ethereal nature of a ghost.
“Talia Brillante” Viginia D’Alto Alberti UY. This mask pays homage to Talia, the muse of comedy, who entertains by making us laugh, and when we laugh we shine. Her materials include fabric, adhesive, ribbons, various beads and sequins, and techniques include embroidery, quilting and beading.
“Mi Identidad” by Luz del Carmen X. Aldape, Mexico, presents her identity as a weaving combining cultural elements, some of them of opposing, presented in very Mexican symbols and use of bright clear colours
Ana Maria Casnati UY “La Mascara de la Resistencia” addresses the imbalances between the remembered history of this region’s idigenous people and their presence in Uruguay’s population today.
“Rostro del Viento Azul” (The face of blue wind) Andrea Santero UY. In Japanese folklore, traditional red-faced, severely aggressive spirits inhabit the forests and mountains. This still forceful, but less aggresive blue face, with gold details represents a more contemplative version of those spirits’ mysterious wisdom.
“Guiño” (wink) Tabaré Gonella UY. The artist observed how intergenerational understanding was communicated between his father and older relatives in the blink of an eye.
“El Besador” ( The Kisser) Carla Pinto CH. This fabulous mask of a witch-like figure refers to the alluring power of female sexuality. Lines of the basketry extending beyond the cheek suggest a woman posing to attract male attention – but is this her innate femininity or a deliberate seduction?
“Limbus” Maria Benita Rodriguez UY. The artist’s mother is suffering age-related dimentia, by which she lives in the area between conscious function and what is now lost, and moving through the various stages of disconnection she displays fragile control of body and speech. On this intensely worked mask, stitches, beads and sequins represent moments of lucidity separated by unworked areas of disconnection.
I hope these ten masks and my reactions to them help motivate you to visit this exhibition before the end of October !! And, if you’re an artist in Uruguay or other latin countries, keep an eye on the Facebook page CETU Centro de Arte Textil Uruguayo, which is how I hear about these things. As a fibre artist based here in Montevideo, I’m always grateful to the diligent efforts of Felipe Maqueira to spread information about upcoming opportunities, in addition to his worldwide coverage of interesting developments in the fibrearts.
The series statement reads “I see grids as symbols of order and stability. An early pioneer of computer generative art in the 60s, Vera Molnar added a small element of code that introduced randomness into her computer plotter’s algorithms, resulting in disrupted grid lines and distorted squares. Inspired by Molnar’s geometric linear work, in 2020 I developed a stitched square unit which I’ve used many times since. “Out Of Order 3” is from a series of works prompted by breakdowns in the internationally agreed systems of rules-based order that shape political, social and trading networks currently under pressure from social, political, financial and technological change.”
To me, a grid respresents a framework of normality, diagrammatic patterns of normal human behaviour, within our families, and at community, national and international levels. Many in today’s world are lamenting the loss of the international rules based order that grew after WWII, but disintegration of patterns is happening at all levels, and such disruptions have an unsettling effect on each of us.
Out of Order 1, 2025. 148cm x 82cm
Out of Order 2 2025. ~100cm x 85cm Now this degreee of distortion looks pretty tame …
#1 didn’t make the cut where I entered it, #2 has not been seen anywhere yet, but both will be included in my fortcoming solo exhibition next January.
Out of Order 3 2025 98cm x 98cm will appear in the SAQA Global Exhibition “AI: Artistic Interpretation” October 2025.
In the past few years there have been many attacks around the world on ‘normal’ people just going about their business, including the pirate attacks on ships sailing through the Straits of Hormuz, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the dreadful assault of Hamas on Israel, and racial and ethnic minorities in many parts of the world. Some are loudly voiced politico-economic outbreaks without any military elements, but highly disruptive nevertheless. Plus, in many countries there are so many personal scandals in the most powerful political leaders in our daily news, that I myself know several people who refuse to watch TV or listen to radio for news, and only read as much online or in newspapers that they feel gives them the bare bones of what’s going on, because they feel it’s all unhealthily distressing. I know what they mean, and quite often I pick up my mobile phone to play solitaire or similar while listening to the latest reports, without watching the latest gruesome video. I grew up in the days of radio before TV came to Australia in 1956, and so this feels quite normal and often preferable to me.
So far this “Out of Order” series shows some increasing irregularity, but now, as I look back at the beginning of August, I realise it’s pretty slight, really, compared with the huge disruptions we’ve all been experiencing this year in our various grid structures of living. Many commentators expect greater impacts ahead, perhaps even culminating in a world recession. The sabres are rattling again on the 80th anniversary of the nuclear bomb being dropped on Hiroshima… As I write the US president is voicing how he’d like to meet with the Russian and the Ukrainian presidents, so international pattern disruptions are developing very fast, and I think my grids need to be much more distorted!
My collection of pinned images on Pinterest includes a board titled ‘Grids!’ because this concept of structures in which we live and operate has become important to me. There are several artists whose work I admire, such as Vera Molnar of course, Takahiko Hayashi, Lari Washburn, Giles Bettison, Agnes Martin, Shane Drinkwater and more; but just this morning I found a painter, Dustin D Smith, whose work really resonated with me. This short video https://www.instagram.com/p/C8kGr4WJ4ah/ is a generous insight into his process, and I immediately began to think of in terms of fabric+paint+stitch…
On our trip to Egypt in 2008, we came across many textiles to enjoy and buy – and we actually had to buy two new large suitcases to get all our stuff back home again! I have written before about the tentmaker artisans who stitch wonderful textile works initially developed as roll-up linings for the nomadic Bedouins’ tents, and now also available in sizes from cushions and table runners (aimed at tourists but with the same high standard of craftsmanship) up to 2m sq. works, of which we bought two. One serves as a beautiful bedspread in our guest bedroom, and the other hangs on our own bedroom wall where we enjoy it every day.
We were so lucky to be part of a group of Australians, all friends of Jenny Bowker who visited at the same time (her husband, Bob was then the Ambassador for Australia in the region, based in Cairo) They had been in that post for two of three years by then, and she had made herself familiar with the arts and crafts of the country and particular was clearly on good friend terms with crafsmen whose workshops and studios she took us to see and learn from.
There was a lot to learn, and one of the many fascinating places she took us was to The City of The Dead where an amazing number of people live in and amongst the tombs and mausoleums of the dead, in a busy city that functions within the whole complex of cemetries that extends for several miles.
Spinning cords in the City of The Dead, Cairo Egypt.
I really wish I’d done more homework before going, but perhaps it’s best that what I saw and learned was overwhelming enough, anyway. In the long fairly empty streets between houses and tombs several men had set up a spinning (bicycle) wheel to twist hundreds of metres of yarn stretched out and back; and once spun and stretched to the required point, the two parts were eventually allowed to twirl back twining together under careful control to form cord hanks that are extensively used in appliqued designs trimming mens’ and womens’ garments.
Large hanks of these shiny rayon fibre cords are visible in the right hand section of this sewing notions shop:
Hanks of spun rayon fibre is on the right hand section of the pic, and on the left hang strings of the fabric covered bead buttons on men’s clothing: the tunic-like gelabayahs and waistcoats.
Of course I brought a bunch of these beads back with no idea on how I’d use them! But I did sew a bunch of black ones to one quilt, for texture in a landscape foreground. Doing that, I noticed that the end of the bound fibres comes loose threatening to unravel fairly quickly, so I’m not sure how durable they are for clothing really, but then maybe they’re cheap enough to be frequently replaced. I’ve sometimes thought perhaps I should wear a few strings of them, but first spray them with sealer. while I’m thinking of them perhaps I should go and spray some right now…
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