Africa Journal

While on our safari in Tanzania I kept a daily journal. I'm really glad I did that because we did so much it would have been difficult to remember it all and to remember what we did when. I transcribed it and added pictures and uploaded it to lulu.com, which is a print-on-demand site.



Several days ago I received the latest copy of American Style magazine. This issue is showcasing fiber with several fiber artists highlighted. I put in a display ad along with lots of other Surface Design Association members, so I have a small part of a full page. Many other members took advantage of the same deal, so it may be lost in there. I hope at least a few people take the time to cruise all the links. Anyhow, the interesting thing to me is that the art quilt on the cover is a piece by Marianne Burr, the artist that captured my attention at Quilts=Art=Quilts and who I wrote about in my previous post. I love her take on circles.

Carol Larson nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger Award. Thanks, Carol, I haven't won many things lately, having received at least 2 or maybe 3 rejections since my Quilt National acceptance. I'm happy that somebody likes what I'm doing. Carol and I share opinions on many things and are of about the same age. We live on opposite coasts and see the world from different heights. If I were to follow her blog naming convention, this would be Short Girl Tales.

For the rest of this reward, here's what I'm to do:
1. Put the logo on my blog.
2. Link to the person who nominated me.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to those blogs here.
5. Leave a message for my nominees.

I've done the first two but will have to work on the other 3. That post will come soon.

This past weekend my husband and I drove up to Syracuse for a weekend with my sister and a visit to the Schweinfurth to see Quilts=Art=Quilts. They don't allow pictures but you can download a pdf file of the show.

My piece was in the last room we came to (by that time my sister was asking if I was sure I was in the show.) Standing right in front of my quilt were two couples and they were discussing what they saw in the piece. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I introduced myself and offered to answer any questions. We talked about my piece for a minute and then they were interested in hearing what I thought about other pieces in the show. I talked about surface design, explaining to them what that was by pointing out Helene's Davis' works. In addition to winning the Surface Design Award at this show, one of Helene's entries had been sold.

I was fascinated by the work of Marianne Burr. I don't remember ever hearing of her before, but her work uses circles, hundreds of circles, which have always attracted me. Doing a little googling on her name, it appears that my head has been in the sand because Marianne is an award winner. She is in the current Visions show, and is also in Quilt National, so I hope I can meet her at the opening.

Another artist whose work captures me is Terry Jarrad-Dimond I first saw her work at ArtQuilts Elements last spring. She has two pieces in Q=A=Q. They are very simple, large color blocks of her hand dyed fabrics. It is her use of thread that makes the work so special. She quilts the piece heavily in closely spaced parallel lines, but uses the thread to change the underlying color of the fabric. So a piece of red fabric might be quilted with an area of red, another area in white, and a third area in purple. Each thread change subtly changes the fabric color. It's the kind of work that merits close inspection to see the threadwork, but also merits viewing from a distance to see the subtle changes.

An Excellent Catalog

I received the catalog Quilt Art 22 - Under Construction yesterday. It's a catalog of the exhibit of the European group Quilt Art and it's a fascinating look at not only the work of these 20 fiber artists but also the thought processes and planning that goes into her piece in the exhibit. There are pictures of studios, sketch books, inspiration photographs, along with explanations of how and why they chose to do what they did. I love to see the process behind the work, and it's so interesting to see how different people are in their approach to what they're trying to do. I highly recommend this little catalog. It's small in format, about 5.5" x 5.5", but there are 96 pages of color images, and it's beautifully presented. Charlotte Yde is the graphic designer and editor and is also one of the artists in the group. Others in the group are Bethan Ash, Elizabeth Brimelow, Sally-Ann Boyd, Fenella Davies, Ann Fahy, Dirkje van der Horst-Beetsma, Inge Hueber, Sara Impey, Bridget Ingram-Bartholomaus, Jane Lloyd, Sandra Meech, Evelyn Montague, Mirjam Pet-Jacobs, Karina Thompson, Janet Twin. And also my friends Linda Colsh, Dominie Nash, and Jette Clover. I really like the fact that I'm hanging around with such accomplished and talented people.

Their website is here.

If you would like a copy of this catalog (in the USA) email Dominie. The cost is $25 plus $3.50 shipping.