This is SAQA Europe/Middle East: The Netherlands

Willy Doreleijers

My name is Willy and I live in Dordrecht the oldest city of Holland with my two cats Sam and Sjors and husband Herman.

I love to work with textile. My work provided the crucial link between my interest in textiles, art and architecture.

After years of making things in my free time, I decided to join an evening course on costume design. I learnt all the skills for pattern drawing, designing clothes and embroidery techniques. But somehow this still did not quite satisfy my abiding interest in textiles.

My husband is an architect and the foundation of my interest in design and art. My passion for quilting ignited after a visit to the Textile Museum in Tilburg, in the Netherlands, in 1997. This is where I saw my first quilt show, the European Art Quilt Exhibition, which for me solved the missing link between textiles and art.

After seeing this exhibition, I immediately started researching classes where I could learn patchwork and quilting. I was specifically looking for a class where I had the freedom to work on my own ideas rather than follow strict instructions. I took a two-year course called Quilting Special, designed especially for textile teachers. Despite the fact that I wasn't a teacher, I was still able to take the course and learned a lot about design as well as the techniques and processes needed to achieve them. After it ended, I had several years of personal guidance from a textile artist and teacher from the Art Academy in Maastricht. Here I learned to look critically at my work by asking myself such questions as, 'Is this good?' 'Is this the result I wanted to achieve?'

"Streetcar"

The greatest challenge so far is finding a way to make a graphic image with gossamer lines and soft colours on fabric. Textile materials are not easy to manipulate as they have a habit of stretching and pulling out of shape.

"Dunes with Grass"

People asked my ‘what inspires me?’ In response of this question I make a poem ‘My Images’.

I hope that this give you a impression of my way of working and thinking.

I live in this world,

in between things and impressions.

I observe

and take them in.

Everyday things.

I look for them,

encounter them

and show them.

A door, an alley, an animal,

a letter, a tree, a building.

Just the daily things, the everyday.

Small emotional monuments,

poetically magnified,

a stage for attention.

Accentuating, leaving out,

twisting, enlarging,

reducing, distorting, doubling.

My image in line, form and colour,

I am a monuARTal thinker.

To see more of my work, visit my website: www.willydoreleijers.nl