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Wednesday 28 November 2012

West Country Quilt Show


For the next three days - Thursday 29, Friday 30 November, and Saturday 1st December - ten of my quilts will be on display in a gallery within a new quilt show - the West Country Quilt Show.  I took my quilts there today for hanging, and it looks very promising - with all quilts hanging on large white walls.  It takes place at the Bath and West Showground, near Shepton Mallet, Somerset, open 10 am to 5 pm.  Full details in their website:  www.westcountryquiltshow.co.uk . Other participants are Ferret, Rosemary Hillman, and Kaffe Fassett. Christine Porter will be signing copies of her new book.

Go and have a look if you are in the area!

Time and the City


Sunday 25 November 2012

Hello again!



I have not been posting much recently because I find I am not a natural blogger.  I don't write about what I do - I just do it.  I don't tell everybody what I do every day.  I only write when I have something important to tell.

So I will tell my latest important news here, and then I will just post photos from time to time, and the very occasional comment when there is something to say.

My main project for the next year is to research and produce work for EARTH STORIES.  This is a SAQA project-based exhibition - meaning you didn't submit a quilt to enter, you submitted a portfolio and a project proposal that fit with the guidelines: a positive story about our earth.  I entered, and was one of the 25 artists from all over the world, selected to carry out their individual projects.  I am delighted and proud to be one of them.

My project will be based on what is going on in the area where I live. The Somerset Levels is an area of great importance for its geography, history, and biodiversity.  Several nature reserves within the Avalon Marshes area are doing fantastic work to protect threatened species and develop their natural habitats.  I will choose a more narrow focus within that general concept.  A lot of research is needed first, which I have started carrying out.

The work has to fill a space of 72" by 72" (183 cm by 183 cm), and it can consist of one, or as many pieces as one wants to make to fill the space.  I plan to make several pieces.  I won't be telling about the process as we go along, because we are not supposed to, but also because I never do.

The exhibition will open in May 2014 at the Michigan State University Museum, USA.

Here are some photos taken in Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve.






The Somerset Levels were in the BBC news today, because of the flooding.  Many areas of Somerset are flooded, and the rivers are so full, and the earth so saturated, that the water has nowhere to go, in spite of the careful water management in the region - which is quite low and flat, some areas are below sea level - there are pumps and sluice gates and channelling of water to flood fields, and all sorts of arrangements which normally work well.  So far there has been no flooding in the immediate area of my house, but there has been flooding in villages, towns and roads, only a few miles away in several directions.

I think from next January 2013 - the new year - I will go back to putting up photographs frequently - may be not every day, as I did in my first year of blogging, but a couple of times a week.

Good night! and thank you for reading.

Alicia

Monday 5 November 2012

My York Quilt and other exhibitions

I have not posted in my blog for over a month - no entries at all in October!  I have been travelling a lot,  in Germany, France, Switzerland, and various parts of the UK, teaching and attending exhibitions.

One of those was a trip to York to follow the Quilters' Guild 'Quilt City' trail.  My quilt, "Yorke 1611", inspired by the map of the time by John Speed, hangs in the Explore York Library.

The whole trail is magnificent, with quilts hanging in the Quilt Museum (Linda Barlow's commissioned quilt), many different shops and coffee shops, the Art Gallery, the theatre, etc. etc.  Worth catching up with before it closes on November 15th!




I also went to Leamington Spa where I have two quilts in "Through Our Hands", an art quilt exhibition at the Museum and Art Gallery.  That one is open until 13 January.  





And my travels have not finished yet - I am going to Totnes this week, for another exhibition - South West Textile's "Over the Rainbow"at Birdwood House, Totnes, Devon.





Hope you can visit one or more of them!  And I hope to return to some more regular and consistent posting in my blog, after next week.

Thank you for popping by!

Alicia