This week on the Quiltart list, there is a lot of interest in a challenge someone issued for members to try their hand at finding and using unconventional material (from hardware stores) in art quilts, by some specified time, and to photograph and publish the results online as a group – well I think that’s the gist of it since I haven’t  ‘done challenges’ these past couple of decades; and yet writing that I realise it is not strictly speaking true.  Everything I design and make is a challenge, of my own generation, really, requiring thought, possibly experimentation (samples) and commitment to achieve its completion.

There was a time nearly 2 decades back when I belonged to an experimental group in which the monthly challenges we took part in enabled each of us to grow, with more oganised experimentation, and through critique learn a lot more than what we achieved in our own individual works.  So this materials challenge will open a lot of eyes – the gee whizz factor being one result:” Who on earth would have thought to use tap washers/slices of garden hose/spray on weed killer/ etc in an art quilt?  Fancy that ….”  Participants will learn the positive and negative qualities of the materials they experiment with. 

But the treasure hunt for unusual materials and their use will not grant any of the works more artisitc merit unless the use of good design principles and the ability of the artist to connect with the viewer in some meaningful way is also pondered and employed. 

IMHO the art quilt world today is obsessively focused on techniques and materials, to the detriment of good design, and this challenge typifies the current imbalance in much of the work in this genre.

Dangling door handles from the lower edge, applying insect screen mesh or embellishing with tap washers may be technically interesting but does not necessarily produce something that is ‘art’.

The 2011 SAQA Benefit Art quilt Auction starts one week today – Monday September 12th at 2-00pm , Eastern Time USA – adjust for your local equivalent time to be quick off the mark.  It is an online auction, in reverse, so they come up on day 1 at the top price payable, (in this case $750) and every day at 2-00pm Eastern the price of those unsold drops, so they become more affordable but of course, more hotly contested !

For this annual auction, over 300 small wall quilts sized around 10″ to 12″ square, were contributed by SAQA members.  Every one is an original design.  Some of the makers are well known, and others not so – and in style and theme there’s something for everyone.  Some of them will be framed by their buyers, but all have been submitted ready to hang on the wall.   Mine is pictured below, and can be found on page 2a, 4th row down – this means it will be auctioned in the second auction week – the week beginning 19th september.

I don’t know why this little one never received a title – it is in the Timetracks series really, and I guess should be #21 but it never received it, and is listed as Untitled.  I’ll mentally allocate that number, and the next Timetracks I do, which is coming up in a rush right now, will be #22. 

 Anyway, if you are interested in collecting, go to SAQA where you will find this year’s quilts pictured on 6 pages.  Detailed instructions about how the auction operates are there.  Each  image can be clicked  to take you through to more information about the makers and their own websites.  New this year is the display of several small collections of images that have been grouped by volunteer curators who see a common theme in the quilts they selected.  These are very interesting – and I wonder if anyone will be prompted to try to collect a whole group?  Several pieces appear in more than one collection, interestingly, a sign of broad appeal, perhaps.

A  few weeks ago I posted  group of small landscape works from 2000,  mounted on woven newspaper mats which seemed like a good idea at the time.   A while back I dug them out to give me something of  a starting point in a small pieced works direction to which I feel increasingly drawn.

These fit a 20cm x 20cm art stretcher. 

I love pieced work, where areas of different coloured and textured fabrics are joined by stitch to form a new fabric surface pattern.  Call it patchwork if you will, which it technically is;  however I think to most people the term ‘patchwork’  has connotations of templates,  traditional patterns and precise geometric shapes.  The ultra fine lines in pieced work  by Margery Goodall several years ago alerted me to technical potential that I had not explored in my own work (and since developed in my Ebb & Flow series)  Recent improvisational pieced works of Lisa Call and Erin Wilson have reminded me of the potential of ‘lines’.