Linda Colsh on TextileArtist.org

Linda Colsh has been featured in an interview with TextileArtist.org about her and her artwork recently, the links to the two parts of the interview can be found here and here. Check it out and enjoy!

Linda Colsh, "Almost There" (detail)

Kurochka ryaba 2013 in St. Petersburg, Russia

Barbara Lange (Germany) has sent us the following report:

This October I had the unique pleasure of being invited to exhibit my „Monochrom“ series of quilts along with the mirror-pyramid series in St. Petersburg, at the Kurotschka ryaba festival. This event is still fairly new – only in its 3rd year, so far – but growing.

The venue is an art deco building, home of the artist association of St. Petersburg. Designed to host art exhibitions, the lighting and the whole flair of the hall is the ideal setting for putting quilts with a  large format on display.

Located on the upper gallery, I was a thrilled to see my quilts all in one glance.

Unfortunately, it is pretty much impossible to demostrate the glow-in-the dark effect of the Monochrome series, you will just have to find a chance to see one of the quilts in reality:

Monochrom V at day…

…and at night.(Note by the blog moderator:
Barbara's picture does show the quilting
with self-glowing thread beautifully,
and it is visible when the photo is
opened on my computer, but obviously
blogger doesn't want to let you see it,
I have tried to reload several times...)

 Fortunately, the mirror pyramids give away their “secret” more readily.  This is a picture of “Magnolia with Virtual Chaffer” is taken more from the side:

Viewed at the exact right angle, you will discover a chaffer (or may beetle), which is set together out of reflections from the surrounding area of the pyramid.

Should you consider travelling to St. Petersburg in October, I highly recommend visiting the festival – it offers a unique outlook on eastern quilts and culture. More pictures and a detailed description of the event coming up on www.berninablog.com!

Barbara  Lange

www.barbaralange.com

The 2013 Gallery Continues...

Cecília Gonáles, one of the two people behind desedamas from Spain, is another member from Europe/Middle East whose mini-quilt will be auctioned at the IQF in Houston later this month.

"Let's open the windows II"

She is currently working on the series "Let's open the windows", which utilizes silk hankerchiefs, because she thinks it is time to open windows to let in fresh air, new sounds, interesting smells...

The SAQA meet and greet in London

A select group of SAQA members from the UK met with Judith Trager at the V&A in London, discussing various issues of SAQA in Europe, and the UK's position in it. Unfortunately, nobody took a picture of Judith, so all we have is a few pictures of the Brits.

Annette Morgan and Sandy Snowden

Linda Seward

A little out of focus, but all the sharper in real: Lynn Seaman

Margaret Ramsay

Would you like to organize a meet and greet for SAQA members in your area or country, either in conjunction with a larger quilting event or exhibition, or independently from that? The co-reps will happily help you get in touch with people. Just send us a note.

Exhibition by Edith Bieri in Dinkelsbühl, Germany

Long-term president of the Swiss Patchwork guild and SAQA-member Edith Bieri (take a look at her blog here) is currently exhibiting at the textile.ART.galerie in Nördlinger Str. 53, Dinkelsbühl, Germany. 

Opening hours of the gallery are: Thursdays from 15 - 18 h and one weekend per month. To get the exact date for the weekend openings, please contact:info@textil-art-galerie.de or phone +49 9851 5898076. 
The last day of this exhibition will be on November 24th.

A member-supported blog

This blog was started just about a year ago, October 21 will be our first anniversary.

It was set up as a member-supported blog. This means that we call upon members of SAQA Europe/Middle East to send in their contributions – i.e. announcements/reports about exhibitions of their work, instances where they were featured in any kind of publication, reports about SAQA-related activities, prizes they might have received. The original guidelines for submission were posted here. 

Unfortunately, so far contributions have been less numerous than I had hoped (and my hopes were not exactly high when I started this activity). 

However, severe criticism has been voiced that ‘not much is happening on this blog’. And that there is not enough reporting about Great Britain, only the ‘continent’.

Please remember that Uta is maintaining this blog as a moderator only, this is not her personal blog where contents lie in her responsibility alone. She has spent a lot of time during the past three weeks giving this blog more content during the countdown towards the give-away that we are all waiting for. But she will not be able to keep up this pace.

• Have YOU contributed anything to this blog yet? 
• Do you have any idea how it might be livened up? 
• What would you like to read on this blog – and would you be willing to send in contributions? 
• Are some members from our various countries perhaps willing to act as regular contributors or local correspondents? 
• Will you remember next time you have an exhibit or are participating in one to send in a short notice for publication on the blog?
• Are you perhaps planning a get-together of SAQA-members in your country that could be posted on the blog? (The co-reps would be very willing to help you get in contact with people in your country, too.)

Please feel free to make suggestions as to how the topic range on this blog could be altered, and the involvement of our regions’ members increased. Do send your suggestions to the e-mail address given in the submission guidelines, and we will gladly take them into consideration.

This blog lives – when everyone gives!

The 2013 Gallery continues.

Sandy Snowden from the UK sent us the following description of her making of the piece that will be sold in the SAQA Benefit Auction at Houston.

A bit of the story:

This piece almost made itself. It was one of those things that you could only make because of several things which I made before and learned from.

Also, a few years ago, I made a few quick sketches of an idea onto old dictionary pages. (This is unusual for me. I don’t often do sketches.) When it came time for the SAQA auction, I thought I might see how to translate the sketch to fabric.

And so fabric with script was the first choice from my stash. Like the words on the paper in my sketch, I placed the script sideways – using it almost like a gentle stripe. I put fusible web on the back of this fabric. I also selected a black fabric to pick up the colour of the words, but also to retain the look of the black pen in my sketch.

A few quick lines again as if making the sketch over. Then a bit of chopping apart and placing pieces back together over the black fabric. All that remained was to fuse it, sandwich the quilt, then stitch round the shapes and bind it!

I have been inspired to develop this style and more pieces have come from it...I call it the Ramshackle series. The various pieces which followed and thoughts about them can be found here, on my blog. 

Here is a link to a detail photo.