Art Quilt Australia 2019

Just in the nick of time I got to see the fantastic display of contemporary quilts at the National Wool Museum in Geelong. Picked up a friend along the way – it is always interesting to share the viewing with another textile art aficionado.

Here are some of the quilts I really liked. Looking back I think it is the overall strength of the design along with the stitching detail that attracts my interest. Another friend who visited the same exhibition some months ago found that her favourites all had a floral theme.

Judy Howarth Adventure Journal: China
Discharge technique on commercial cotton to create rows of gold knobs on red temple doors. I loved the wide zigzag machine quilting.

Carolyn Collins Autumn Day on Victoria St
Batik is fused onto a pieced background of hand dyed and printed cotton and silk. The machine quilting is close to the edges of the spikey branches and shadows of the persimmon tree. Batik is the perfect fabric for this treatment, the clean cut lines spread wonderfully out from the misty centre.

Jill Rumble Landlines II
The disciplined hand and machine quilting lines show the marks on the landscape left by humans, animals and nature. There is a lovely rhythm in the delicate stitching of the wheat stubble.

Alison Muir Our Custodial Land (details)
Unfortunately the lighting on this silk and paper quilt reflected so much that it was not possible to take a full photo. Again it is the hand stitching with silk thread along with couching that makes the interesting textures. Further pattern comes from dyeing with natural materials and some painting. Other marks are made with machine stitch adding depth.

Barbara Mellor Winter Weeping (detail)
Machine quilting with blue polyester thread on white homespun. The threads used to create the stand of trees are left hanging down beyond the quilt’s edge. It was almost as if the artist had had enough of stitching. The idea was to create movement in the wintry trees.

Louise Wells A Well Worn Path
The almost invisible steps through the house mark the years and years of family laundering. The tiny cut away snippets through to the pieces of worn out family clothing look like little jewels.

Anna Brown PATTERNS 8 Honour The Past
This received an Ozquilt Network Highly Commended and was my favourite. It has a brown and red wool striped background with large yellow felt shapes appliquéd by hand. Further appliqué black stripes and brown squares follow deceptively simple rules to complete this complex design. This is one of the many quilts with beautiful slow stitched lines.

Alison Withers Change for Earth (details)
A response to the passion of young people protesting against government inaction in a time of climate crisis. Wool felt appliqué and needle painting techniques. The drawn line is couched silk tape. It received an Highly Commended in the Wool Quilt Prize.

So glad I found the time to visit this now closed exhibition, it was superbly hung in the large gallery space. The next one will be in 2021, the venue is not yet listed. However AQA 2019 will tour to the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum in Lilydale from 8 Feb to 17 May 2020 so I can have another viewing. In the meantime all works can be seen online here.

Quilts at AQC

A small selection of the hundreds of stunning quilts to be seen at the 2019 Australasian Quilt Convention. It was very easy to spend the entire day looking at the quilts and discussing them with friends and other viewers.

The Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead includes the creation of ofrendas like the one I saw in Ballarat. A collection of quilts brought by tutor Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli are lively quilt creations following the same formula celebrating the life of a loved one.

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The first quilt celebrates Cesar E Chavez, a labor leader, civil rights advocate and humanitarian. He organised an international grape boycott that resulted in improving working conditions for thousands of farm workers. The second is made by Charlotte Lerchenmuller to reflect the life of her husband Sal Castro, Father, Grandfather, Civil Rights Leader and Teacher. Finally an altar quilt dedicated Leonardo Castillo Molina. A devoted family man who worked as a janitor all his life to support his family of ten children.

Quilts and bags from the 2018 Quilt Festival in Korea look at the notion of what to Reveal or Conceal. The outside of the bag is visible to the world, the contents concealed. Similarly a quilt is on public view but the inspiration, motivation and thoughts of the quilt maker may be concealed.

At the top “Light and Darkness are not Severed” Choi, Eun Young. A pieced, sliced and transformed block repeated with very controlled colour placement. A simpler block in the bag repeats the colours in a more clearly defined way.

The label was absent from the second pair. Colours are strictly separated in the quilt and the hand quilting beautifully transforms the silk fabric. The bag blends the colours with knitted silk strips.

“Wear or Carry” Do, Jin Byang (quilt detail) A lively collage looking at how clothing is a part of who we are.

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Most of the quilts in this years challenge “Magic” were pictorial and did not have an obvious connection to the theme. Neroli Henderson did include some magic in her quilt “The Wish” – when you followed the instruction to use a flash to photograph the quilt, the message was magically revealed. Dedicated to Jill Meagher, Eurydice Dixon, Aiia Maasarwe and all the other women who never made it safely home.

Continuing with my appreciation of crazily collaged quilts this was my pick of the challenge. “The Magic of Fabric” by Lisa Johnson who says ‘No matter how much fabric I have there is always another piece that catches my eye.’

The stand out quilt in the Best of Australia section was the Tasmanian entrant by textile artist Cindy Watkins “The Collective Language of Trees”. It a part of her 5000 Trees Project inspired by the book The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohileben. Cindy has set herself the goal too stitch 5000 trees exploring the amazing and complex life of trees. As the works are sold she will donate $2 to Landcare Tasmania.

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This work was inspired by the stunning autumn display of colour seen at Cradle Mountain in Tasmania, when the Deciduous beech or Fagus, Nothofagus gunnii go from green to gold. The deciduous beech is Australia’s only deciduous tree. Each of my textile artworks holds within its fibres the essence of the Tasmanian rain forest that grows on my property at Golden Valley. The silk used in each work is hand dyed with the gum leaves collected from the forest floor. The trees are free style stitched on a sewing machine.

Architecture

Waverley Art Quilters set a theme for a small textile piece each month. I have been looking forward to the Architecture theme and had planned to use the Reader’s Digest Building in Surry Hills, Sydney as the inspiration for my work.

The RMIT Campaign for funding to reimagine the Capitol Theatre as an industry and education space reminded me of this magnificent interior, and so I used the amazing ceiling as a starting point for a highly textured work.

It is made from smocked white cotton and primed art canvas. This involved lots of hand stitching over the past few weeks. Once I had a pile of interestedly worked fabrics, my challenge was to piece them together in a way that reflected the amazing crystalline walls and ceiling of the theatre. It has a sort of inverted pyramid shape with strong 45 degree angles and narrow rectangles.

Limited by my smocked pieces this is what I came up with. And from the back you can see all the stitching.

When held up to the light is is semi transparent and I have been playing with various fabrics to put behind it to replicate the coloured lighting that is a feature of the ceiling.

The best effect I think is with the ice dyed fabric at the bottom, but to hide this gorgeous fabric would be a shame, so I may use one of the top two commercial prints.

This is an excellent article on the Capitol Theatre and the architectural contribution of Marion Mahony who did most of the work even though it is largely known as being by Walter Burley Griffin.

White glove duty

The Quilt Show that is a part of the Australasian Quilt Convention is managed by Victorian Quilters. They rely on volunteers to look after the quilts which are on display and field questions from the viewers. This is known as White Glove Duty, because each volunteer is issued with a pair of cotton gloves, so they can touch the quilts.

No one else can touch the quilts. Why would anyone want to do that? Lots try. They are so tactile. People want to talk about the design and construction and point out special features, with fingers really, really close to the quilt. And some people want to see what’s on the back.

I took my turn at white glove duty on Friday afternoon. But first, on the advice of a friend, I visited this shop at Emporium. And today I found out the name means “no brand”

It is not just clothes as I assumed. It has stationery and containers. Nuf said.

The various travelling exhibitions that were on display at AQC this year were fantastic. Some of the best yet. Here is my take on just a few.

The Cherrywood Challenge is sponsored by the fabric company. A theme, Vincent van Gogh, and fabrics, blue, are responded to by quilters from around the world. Lots of the famous works were given a new spin, and there were far too many puns on his name involving combie vans. Many replicated the painter’s distinctive brush strokes in various forms of appliqué.

‘If Van Gogh Could Sew’ Laurie Miller Rolla, MO, USA

‘Vincent Visits Maine’ Sarah Ann Smith Hope, ME, USA

‘Van Gogh Dog’ Christina Blais, Stratford CT, USA

But for sheer chutzpah, I couldn’t go past the quilter who called her work, If Van Gogh Could Sew!

Best of QuiltCon 2017 had many modern quilts that warranted a second and third view.

‘Cling to the Edge’ Irene Roderick

detail showing improv piecing

I really liked the balance in this improv pieced work and the use of curves. The artist said that ‘as it took shape it seemed to be a self-portrait and expression of my current frame of mind’.

Were were treated to two related travelling exhibitions from the Studio Art Quilt Associates.

Turmoil

‘Conflict 1’ Judy F Kirpich

Influenced by the conflict in Syria and the people caught between violent extremists and a corrupt regime, the quilter has used quilting lines to extend the constructed imagery. Then the whole design idea is repeated in small bursts of angry red stitching. It seems the violence reaches into every little corner.

‘Flying Geese’ Vicki Conley

‘A thousand snow geese taking to the sky all at once.’ The population ‘acts as one, preventing true turmoil in the face of apparent chaos.’

I love a quilt constructed with a rule. I think the algorithm for this one is – A white on white, or a black and white print rectangle. Add a black triangle to one, two or three corners. Assemble in rows.

Tranquility

‘Morning Walk” Donna Deaver

The restrained palette and swirling quilting lines take you right to the water’s edge.

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‘A Window Into Spaces’ Maya Chaimovich

detail showing needlepoint

This quilt, by an Israeli quilter is her view of being in the silent emptiness of the desert. I missed this at first. Then someone asked me to show them the back. We got talking and the more we looked the more we saw. The entire work is made up of small fabric fragments fused so they blend so well there is no edge. The meandering quilting lines did not seem to relate to the textures or tones on the surface.

It is the back which holds the answer, the lines come from the hot spots on that fabric. So it must have been quilted ‘up side down’. I would have missed all this if I hadn’t been doing White Glove Duty.