Another fantastic meeting! This
was the first regional meeting for Christina and me to “fly solo” as your new
co-reps, and we thank you for your patience with us. As I stated repeatedly
over the course of the meeting – you are an amazing group of women [and Dwight]
and we are so very lucky to be working with all of you.
Wanda Seldon, member of the CT-FAC
and a board member of the Windsor Art Center, opened out meeting by welcoming
the 38 of us to the exhibit and space, with an additional encouragement to become
a member of the Windsor Art Center, especially with a Members’ Exhibition coming up!
- The opportunity to meet art quilters
of all different levels and styles, along with their varied life stories and
unique perspectives is absolutely invigorating.
- The encouragement that the “big
names” in quilting have rough spots and have to just keep working at it, just
like the rest of us.
- The idea to work BIG and the
value to working in a series. Working in a series can mean many things: one
thought is to make a piece, then change just one thing [color OR line OR shape
OR scale OR…] that wasn’t working and try it again. Then change a different
thing and try it again. Then change a different thing, or go back and if you
chose A instead of B, go back and choose B this time.
At which point, Christina put out
a call for a regional Visioning Project to work in a series. Anyone looking to
work in an encouraging small group setting [and especially anyone looking to
volunteer to wrangle such a group] toward a goal of pushing your work
forward through working in a series should email Christina.
We also posed the call for a large
open space for our summer regional meeting – we’re hoping to have a vendor/tag
sale/stash swap day, by request from the membership. We have had a few of you
mention some ideas – but are always open to more options for this and other
meetings in the future.
Betty Warner is still open to
accepting more pieces for our regional Trunk Show. Pieces should be 6x10 and will
be mounted to a black backing board and inserted into a clear sleeve. Details are on the Trunk Show tab of our blog.
Cathy Smith mentioned the upcoming Quilting and Fiber
Arts one day event, June 11th from 10a-4p at the Windham Textile
Museum.
As usual, we saw some stunning
pieces from many members during everyone’s favorite, Show and Tell. A few
notable links are:
-Barb McKie was published in a
fantastic multi-page spread in issue 17.5 of the Australian Patchwork and Stitches Magazine
and will be exhibiting in the International Quilt Invitational Exhibition at the Brigham
City Museum, UT from June 17 – August 31, 2016.
- Barbara Dieroff mentioned
“Connecticut Scissorhands”, the Connecticut chapter of Surface Design
Associates exhibition at the Gallery on the Green [Dowd
Avenue in Canton CT], from April 22 through May 22. The gallery is open Fri,
Sat, Sun from 1-5p.
- Dawn Allen
has her first solo show, “Larger Than Life Flowers”, at Black Birch Vineyards
in Southampton MA for August and September [opening reception Aug 5th], and
showed her new technique of digitally printing colorful flower petals she
contructed and manipulated on the computer, through Spoonflower.
- Dwight Lopes showed off some
fancy marbling using Golden fluid acrylic, and pieces then constructed
using Sew Easy curves quilting method
.
- Mickey Lawler recently filmed an
online class. It’s not live yet, but keep an eye out for it on iQuilt.
- Cathy Smith
highly recommended the viewing of the SAQA exhibition,
Stories of Migration, at the Textile Museum
in Washington, DC.
-Someone mentioned Brookside Quiltworks,
a quilt shop in Egremont MA as a interesting place to exhibit.
A few other links to consider – CAFE
for calls to entry, Fiber Art Calls for Entry, Fiber Art Now
is looking for Emerging Artists [working in fiber less than 5
years], and Laurie Russman mentioned her success with Quilt Canada.
Thank you so much to the Connecticut
Fiber Arts Collective for a beautiful show and
energizing Artists’ Talk.
- Diane
Cadrain discussed about her experiences in Thailand,
represented in “Buddhist Temple II” and “Buddhist Temple I”.
- Carol Vinick explained “Roots
and Wings”, a representation of her two daughters, with a beautiful hidden
image of her and her husband.
- Linda Martin spoke of her
collaged portrait of a Native American, “Righteous Spirit”, made up of over
1,000 pieces!
- Wanda Seldon explained the joy
and jubilation of her Soulful Journey, as depicted in “Praise God From Whom All
Blessings Flow”.
Final notes: the CT Piecemakers
Quilt Guild show was stunning, especially the SAQA-CT invitational exhibit.
Thank you to the members who had pieces in it. We had a wonderful cross-section
of styles represented, and viewers gushed about how much talent you all
possess. I was SO proud of you! And an additional thank you to Laureen Pekar
and Barbara Dieroff for inviting us and helping coordinate the efforts to get
us together and hung.
Lastly, as mentioned a few times
before, I am in the very slow process of reworking the SAQA-CT blog.
So far, I’ve updated the tab of current members. Double-check that you are
listed, spelled correctly, and your website or blog is linked. If any of these
is off, let me know! It’s likely that your membership has expired and/or your
information as it is in the SAQA database is incorrect or incomplete. Also - if
I listed you as a second state and you are only a CT member, I went solely on
mailing addresses thus far and have not gone back with due diligence to
confirming official status. In any case, email me any
changes, and I’ll make corrections.
Thank you again to all of our
regional members, for your passion for art quilts and your enthusiasm for SAQA.
You are such a joy!
