Friday 20 November 2015

quilts=art=quilts

My sister and I had the pleasure this week of a visit to the Shweinfurth Art center in Auburn New York to see the annual Quilts-Art-Quilts show.
It is an annual event in its 35th year but this is the first time we have seen it.  Its is a wonderful show and well worth the two hour drive to get there. I first heard about it last year but the weather last year was just to bad to travel there. this year we had a beautiful sunny day.


There were over 70 quilts in the show and each piece was a delight.


I'll just tell you about a few of my favourites.
A piece by Amy Meissner of Anchorage Alaska was one of the reasons I went to the show. I follow Amy's blog and enjoy her work. She re-uses old fabrics which happens to be a favourite thing for me to do. The piece  that was in the show was one of her reliquary series-number one Accumulation.
The words on the quilt spell out My Teeth my teeth are falling out. In her blog she talks about dreams of teeth falling out and an accident when she was a child which damage her two front teeth. Hand embroidery on the center panel spell out words all related to teeth and problems with teeth.
Its always a great pleasure to see a work in person. Photographs don't always capture the feeling of the work. I was delighted to see some of the small details that a photograph just doesn't capture. I knew that there were small found objects attached to this work but it was great to really see them.


A work by Patricia Kennedy-Zafred  called Sunset across Burma was another favourite. hand dyed cotton, screen printed photos of the dalai lama at three different ages, repeated with small changes and bits of embellishment was very striking.


Golden Canyon by Vicki Conley was very striking. A story of fire and rejuvenation and great printed fabrics.


There were a lot of quilts made using photographs-some more toward realism than others but it was quite evident that printing photos onto fabric is a trend that is still very popular and creative. Hand dyed fabric and altering commercial fabrics with dyes and inks and bleach was also used in many of the works.


A trend that is near to my heart is the reuse of vintage fabrics. There were many works that did just that. Hooray!!


This show should be on the Do Not Miss list for any one in the area. Well Done!!



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