Alicia Merrett

Wednesday image - Wells Cathedral reflection in the well.

2012-02-08T14:02:00.000Z

Small Snowman

2012-02-04T18:16:00.000Z

It snowed today! But it was only a light dusting. However the grandchildren managed to scrape enough of it to have snowball fights, and build this small snowman.

Wordless Wednesday

2012-02-01T00:56:00.002Z

How long does it take to make a quilt?

2012-01-28T10:51:00.001Z

A quilter I know has asked me in Facebook: How long does it take you to make a quilt? My first reaction was to say: How long is a piece of string? But that's not a helpful reply, nor an accurate comparison.

However it is a question many quilters are asked. So this is what I replied:

The actual making takes me a few weeks - depending on the size of the quilt - say between 2 and 8 weeks (and I may work between 3 and 6 hours in a day, and not every day). But the gestation period may take any amount of time - from getting a sudden idea, fully formed, to weeks of research and pondering, in other cases. Both the 'speed' and the 'getting the idea' come from working and more working - spending time in the studio - perspiration as well as inspiration. It's all in Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Outliers' - to get good at something you need to put in 10,000 hours work. Do read it!

As I think it's an important subject, here are some additional thoughts:

When I started quilting, in the 1990s, making a quilt took me an awful lot longer - months rather than weeks, up to a year for a really big quilt. You speed up as you practise and the techniques become familiar. Ideas also come more quickly. And if you concentrate on a few techniques, rather than trying something different every time, and work in series, that also speeds up matters. If you produce work faster, you are inclined to make more work. An upwards spiral! You may get stuck occasionally - it happens to everybody - and the best solution is to keep making, even if you are not completely happy with what you produce, rather than freeze and stop. You need commitment too, obsessiveness you may say.

So if I reply to the original question by saying that a particular quilt took me X weeks to actually make - and that may sound rather a short time (see caption to the photo below) - I'll be missing out mentioning how long it took me to think through the idea beforehand, and also that I first needed to have those 10,000 hours of practice...

So get on working! Happy quilting!

Alicia

"Mapping Earth", 24" by 24" - it took me about 10 days to actually make.

London Quilters exhibition

2012-01-27T23:13:00.000Z

London Quilters are having another exhibition at Swiss Cottage Library in London. I will have some work there as well. If you are in London on 1st March, do come to the Private View, 6 - 7.30 pm. Invitation below, with address details etc.

SAQA Portfolio 18

2012-01-27T11:38:00.000Z

Last year I became a SAQA (Studio Art Quilts Associates) Professional member, which entitled me to be listed in their Portfolios, which are art quilt sourcebooks for anybody interested in art quilts - particularly aimed at galleries, museums, collectors, etc.

I have now received a copy of Portfolio 18, in which I appear listed for the first time, with a nice picture of my map quilt "Seaside Town".

Portfolio 18 lists SAQA art quilters from absolutely all over the world - North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia - I am in very good company! I'm really pleased about it.

Copies of Portfolio 18 can be purchased direct from the SAQA online store.

Exhibitions opening

2012-01-26T15:39:00.000Z

My work is going to be in several exhibitions in the next couple of months. Here is information about the first of them - an exhibition of textile maps by Textile Forum South West, Mapping the Future: Where Are You Now? at The Brewhouse Theatre and Arts Centre, Taunton, Somerset - well, just up my street, isn't it? I will have two large pieced and quilted maps there, and I am looking forward to seeing the rest of the work - some very promising and interesting interpretations! You can check them out in the Mapping the Future blog.

If you are in the area, do come to the Private View on Thursday 23rd February, 5.30 to 8 pm. I will be there. Here is the invitation:

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-25T01:38:00.002Z

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-18T01:55:00.000Z

Computer designed and printed piece

2012-01-05T00:11:00.000Z

A couple of years ago I spent some time experimenting with Photoshop and producing designs which I then printed on fabric. A number of them ended up as Journal Quilts, but a few went on to exhibitions. I have just received back one piece which has been away touring in Europe for a couple of years, with Gudrun Heinz's mini-textile exhibitions.

It is called "Through a Glass, Lightly" and it is 20 cm by 20 cm. It now hangs in my house in a box frame.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2012-01-01T01:05:00.000Z

I wish all my friends a most happy and creative new year!

Here is one of my recent night-quilts: Night Village, size 30 cm by 40 cm, mounted on stretched canvas, and sold at the ColourFX exhibition The View From Here at The Framers' Gallery in London.

See you again soon!

Alicia

Wednesday photos

2011-12-28T23:04:00.000Z

These are some experiments I made by moving the camera while photographing the lights in my Christmas tree. The lights are the kind that change colour on a loop system.

I have been quilting a little bit too!

Happy Festivities and a Creative New Year!

Alicia

Grey clouds on Boxing Day

2011-12-27T00:38:00.002Z

Seasons Greetings!

2011-12-23T18:45:00.000Z

To everybody - have a great festive season! And thanks for reading my blog!

acCent! Art Quilts of the UK

2011-12-17T12:27:00.000Z

The National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky, USA, is having an exhibition - acCent! Art Quilts of the UK - March 16 to June 12, 2012. I am delighted that my quilt "Seaside Town" has been selected to feature there.

Seen in the window of the local toyshop

2011-12-11T22:45:00.000Z

The castle is hand carved in wood, it has two branches and many stairs, it is enormous and most beautiful! A work of art and a work of love. Priceless!

Wordless (?) Wednesday

2011-12-07T18:41:00.000Z

12" by 12" challenge at Midsomer Quilting

2011-12-02T18:19:00.000Z

Today I visited Midsomer Quilting to see their fabulous exhibition of 12" by 12" pieces on the theme of "Fruit". Modelled on the Twelve by Twelve exhibition premiered in their shop/gallery earlier this year, (before moving on to the Festival of Quilts), eighty-odd quilters responded to the challenge and contributed pieces. The result is outstanding.

The exhibition is on all this weekend, and also on Monday and Tuesday (it closes on 6th December), so if you are within travelling distance, do not miss it!

Visitors are asked to choose their five favourite pieces. The highest voted 15 will be displayed at Radstock Museum from next February, as part of the quilt exhibition that Midsomer Quilting is organising there for the third time.

Some of the quilts are also for sale, and written bids are invited. All proceeds with go to the charity CLIC Sargent for children with cancer. There were no names of makers linked to the quilts! so take your pick...

Here are some of my favourite quilts. It was really difficult to choose just five! My contribution is also among them - can you spot it?

Overall view of one display wall

The story of the maggot that lived inside an apple.

The quilts opens up!

The Big Apple

Tomatoes

Pineapples

Not Kiwi Fruit!

Bananas and Pears

Fruit Miles (postcards)

Seeds

Pears

Nuts - and Ladies in the Beach

An unmissable exhibition! And the challenge will be repeated next year, with a new subject.... watch out for it! and contribute a piece! You don't have to live near Midsomer Quilting to be part of it -

contributors this year have come from far and wide, I believe including quilters fromGermany and Australia.

Alicia

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-30T23:27:00.003Z

My hydrangeas are turning red

2011-11-26T07:26:00.000Z

The hydrangeas in my garden are turning deep claret red this late Autumn, from being pretty pink in the summer. I don't really know why, but they do look stunning. A few flower mopheads are staying pink.

Does anybody know why?

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-23T01:02:00.000Z

The View from Here by ColourFX

2011-11-20T23:20:00.001Z

Here are some pictures of the current ColourFX's exhibition in London. There is still one week of the exhibition left - it closes on Saturday 26th November at 4 pm.

It is at Artefact / The Framer's Gallery, 36 Windmill Street, London W1T 2JT, Nearest underground station: Goodge Street. Open Mon-Fri 10 - 5.30, last Saturday 11 - 4.

www.theframersgallery.co.uk/exhibitions.html.

In the window: work by Alicia Merrett. Inside on left: work by Margaret Jarvie.

Work by Christine Restall, Alicia Merrett, and Stefanie Rickard.

Glimpses of work by various members of ColourFX.

Work by Marlene Cohen, Christine Restall, and Alicia Merrett.

Work by Christine Restall and Marlene Cohen.

Work by Marlene Cohen and Stefanie Rickard.

For those who do not live in or near London, the exhibition will be going to Cowslip Workshops, Launceston, Cornwall, in January, and to the Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury, September-December 2012. For further details, check www.colourfx.org.uk

The private view was very busy, and everybody said it is our best exhibition to date, and what a wonderful splash of colour it was, in the middle of grey London.

Hope you manage to see it!

Alicia

and today...

2011-11-20T22:48:00.002Z

... at the 11th hour, it was 11-20-11-2011!!!

In the City of London

2011-11-18T20:35:00.000Z

Sewn interview

2011-11-11T15:43:00.000Z

Well, 11-11-11 seems to have brought good news for me! An interview with me has just appeared in a new website, Sewn Europe, which is described as "a new and innovative online quilting and sewing community for all lovers of fabric crafts." It certainly looks fascinating and it is full of interesting and useful information for quilters and textile people of all kinds. Have a look!

The article is headed with one of my new quilts - a series I have just started, on cities and windows. Here it is again:

It is called "Floating City - Sunset".

Alicia

unique day

2011-11-11T01:16:00.001Z

It's 11 - 11 - 11 !!!!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-09T00:47:00.000Z

The Bishop's Palace Exhibition

2011-11-03T18:26:00.000Z

My exhibition at the Bishop's Palace in Wells, Colour Connections, is now finished. It was extremely well received, with many comments about the wonderful 'splash of colour' in the autumnal weather, which ended the season of exhibitions at the Palace. Several sales were made of work by both artists (Nina Gronw-Lewis and myself), which was very satisfactory. My printed map-quilts greetings cards sold like hot cakes (the same as in the exhibition in Ste Marie aux Mines).

I am now taking some of the work to London to be part of The View from Here, the exhibition by ColourFX Textile Art at The Framers Gallery, London W1T 2JT. The printed map-quilt cards will also be available. Below are some photos from The Bishop's Palace exhibition.

I have also updated my website with new galleries containing my recent map quilts and also the new Cities and Windows series.

Thanks for visiting!

Alicia

It's Halloween!

2011-10-30T14:28:00.000Z

Tea Rose

2011-10-26T00:56:00.000+01:00

A most beautiful red rose from my garden - with a deep, strong, sweet perfume...

A beautiful day in the Bishop's Palace gardens

2011-10-22T18:16:00.000+01:00

As you probably know, I currently have an exhibition in the East Gallery of the Bishop's Palace in Wells, together with glass artist Nina Gronw-Lewis. Today I took a friend to visit it, and afterwards we walked on the beautiful sunlit gardens.

The water that gushes down comes straight from the wells that gave their name to the city.

It goes into the moat that surrounds the Palace, which is a lot calmer.

Under the garden paths, and along the outside of the Palace walls.

There are a number of sculptures in the gardens. This one represents the solar system.

The exhibition closes on Monday 31st October. There is still just over a week to come and see it.

Alicia

Views of Ste Marie aux Mines

2011-10-21T23:21:00.000+01:00

Bonfire in the field

2011-10-17T01:16:00.000+01:00

Ste Marie again

2011-10-14T20:57:00.002+01:00

Other views of Ste Marie aux Mines

2011-10-11T23:30:00.000+01:00

More about the exhibition in Ste Marie aux Mines

2011-10-09T20:48:00.000+01:00

My friend Marlene Cohen had an exhibition alongside mine in Ste Marie aux Mines last September, on the opposite wall of the Eglise de St Louis. Our work is very different from each other, but many visitors said that they were complementary. They certainly were very complimentary about both our work!

Here are some photographs of Marlene's work hanging in the church.

Some of the work by both of us will be shown in London at The Framers' Gallery from mid-November, in an exhibition by ColourFX Textile Art. I shall be posting full details very soon.

Steve Jobs RIP

2011-10-07T01:43:00.000+01:00

Steve Jobs was a genius who not only created the Mac and revolutionised computing, but changed the way the world functions, through iPhones, iPods, iPads, iTunes.... And also,less known, in the years when he wasn't working for Apple, through his work with Pixar and the resulting films - Toy Story and many others. He also was there at the beginning of the World Wide Web, working with Tim Berners-Lee.

We will miss him dreadfully.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-05T00:57:00.000+01:00

"Colour Connections" exhibition at the Bishop's Palace, Wells

2011-10-03T23:39:00.000+01:00

Today was the first official opening day of the exhibition, after the private view yesterday. The work looks wonderful in the all-white gallery, full of light, and overlooking the beautiful gardens. My quilts share the space with Nina Gronw-Lewis's glass and wood sculptures. Quite different from the look it had last time we shared an exhibition, about a year and a half ago now, in Glastonbury Museum. The pieces have a different kind of relationship, while sharing strong colours and love of light.

Here are a couple of examples.

"Elizabethan City", loosely based on a map of London of 1572, and a wooden chair by Nina, with a fused and appliquéd glass panel.

"City Lights", inspired by the view from an airplane at night, and a wood and blue glass piece by Nina.

Carrefour du Patchwork - my exhibition there

2011-09-24T23:35:00.000+01:00

...was Exciting, Exhausting and Exhilarating!

The last three weeks have been madly hectic and left no time for blogging. I was finishing the work for my exhibition at the Carrefour du Patchwork in Ste Marie aux Mines, France, then had to pack it in boxes and get it shipped there. I travelled to France to hang the exhibition and spent four days enjoying the thousands of visitors calling a the Church of St Louis and being amazingly complimentary about my work.

I am now back, so are my quilts, and I am preparing for the exhibition at the Bishop's Palace, Wells, from 3 to 31st October, which is a slightly smaller version of the one in France. Below is a photo of a section of the exhibition as it hanged in Ste Marie, on the day before the exhibition opened.

I hope it will whet your appetite and draw you to come to Wells to see the quilts 'in the flesh'.

Thanks for listening!

Alicia

Glastonbury Abbey on a sunny day

2011-09-03T00:49:00.000+01:00

Glastonbury Abbey is one of my favourite places in Somerset - together with the Bishop's Palace in Wells.

These are the end-of-the-church ruins seen through a surviving arch of the main building.

... and now seen once you go through the arch.

There are a lot of legends associated with Glastonbury Abbey. Joseph of Arimathea is supposed to have arrived to the area around 60 AD and founded the first church. He dig his staff on the earth and a thorn tree grew from it. A thorn tree of a type originating from the Middle East still grows in the Abbey grounds.

The tombs of King Arthur and his Queen, Guinevere, are supposed to have been found by the monks, many centuries ago. A plaque still marks the spot! We don't know whether they were the real graves, but they certainly attracted a lot more 'tourists' of the time: pilgrims. Glastonbury was a very rich abbey and it is said that its monks were among the first marketing experts.

Wells Moat Races

2011-08-29T23:50:00.000+01:00

Today we went to see the annual Bank Holiday Moat Races around the Bishop's Palace in Wells. They were a lot of fun, like always. They have hilarious groups of participants rowing their barely 'sea'-worthy rafts through various obstacle races, but they have the time of their life while making a contribution to the life of the town and to several charities.

The place was crowded with families and children, as well as plenty of 'oldies' like us. There were stands of various kinds (from food to fair trade goods to energy saving, and many more), bands playing in the bandstand, amazing drumming workshops, inflatable slide runs and merry-go-rounds for the kids, overhead flying of Spitfires and other such aeroplanes, and a general atmosphere of friendship and fun.

Here is the winning raft - Titanic - rowed by air cadets.

And this is the more usual look of the race - the rafts piling up while trying to go round the obstacles....

The raft-rowing groups were often dressed up and had names such as The Irish Draft (with a raft made up of Guinness barrels), The Breakfast Boaters, The Hollywood Crowd, etc.

That was my break today, having spent the rest of the day packing my quilts in boxes, ready to be shipped to France for my exhibition at the Carrefour du Patchwork in a couple of weeks' time.

See you soon!

Alicia

Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-24T01:32:00.002+01:00

The sky from my garden this evening

2011-08-20T22:45:00.000+01:00

My exhibition next October at the Bishop's Palace, Wells

2011-07-31T23:39:00.002+01:00

As you may know, I am having an exhibition at the Carrefour du Patchwork in Ste Marie aux Mines, France, next September. But if you don't have a chance to come to Alsace to see the show, you can come instead to Wells, Somerset, in October, and see several of the new quilts at my exhibition at the Bishop's Palace.

The Bishop's Palace is a wonderful place, with a moat, beautiful gardens, an arboretum, and sculpture exhibitions in them, so you need to make a day of it! There is plenty to see in the building too, and a cafe/restaurant. Wells Cathedral is next to it and that is very much worth a visit too. They are both in the centre of town, off the Market Place, and there are a number of car parks in town. The exhibition is on the first floor of the building and there is a chair lift for those who may need it, with a wheel chair available at the top.

I shall be stewarding some days and times; if you want to meet up with me, please get in touch with me in advance to make sure I will be there - I'd love to see you! Contact me via my website or Facebook.

Cheers! Alicia

Yellow rose in my garden

2011-07-31T00:50:00.000+01:00

Back online

2011-07-28T23:06:00.000+01:00

Hello! I've been without my computer for a while, but I'm back properly online now.

The flyers are now ready for my various forthcoming exhibitions. Here is the first one - my exhibition with other artists at Somerset Art Weeks this coming September.

Grandson in blue tunnel

2011-07-19T00:08:00.001+01:00

A corner of my sitting room

2011-07-14T23:25:00.000+01:00

I am very proud of my recent acquisition of a beautiful textile hanging by Ursula Rauch, now displayed in my sitting room. I love her work!

Some of my cherished objects are there too: Rocking Bird by toymaker Tony Mann; Wobbly Fishes by Jeff Soan; and Three Brave Travellers and their Guide by papier-mache artist Julie Arkell. I've had those objects for very many years now...

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-13T11:18:00.001+01:00

Cuckoo-pint, or Lords and Ladies, or arum maculatum

2011-07-10T23:56:00.000+01:00

Very poisonous, but beautiful in the sun.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-06T00:44:00.001+01:00

London by river

2011-07-03T00:45:00.000+01:00

Today I went to London to see exhibitions - the Vorticists at Tate Britain, and Miró at Tate Modern. To travel from one to the other, the best is to go by boat - quick and easy!

Here are some photos I took from the boat - a different view....

Houses of Parliament from the boat.

Buildings opposite Tate Britain

The Millenium Wheel

Thanks for looking!

Alicia

Snake sculpture in the Bishop's Palace gardens

2011-06-30T23:57:00.002+01:00

Lights

2011-06-30T00:43:00.002+01:00

Wordless Wednesday

2011-06-29T01:22:00.002+01:00

Seen in Frankfurt....

The hydrangeas are starting to flower

2011-06-26T00:39:00.002+01:00

Blue fish

2011-06-22T23:55:00.002+01:00

"Wine is bottled poetry"

2011-06-22T00:55:00.002+01:00

Green beetle in my garden

2011-06-19T17:14:00.002+01:00

Wordless?

2011-06-14T23:01:00.001+01:00

After Karlsruhe I stayed in Frankfurt for a couple of days with Heide Stoll-Weber. This is the pile of her hand-dyed fabrics I brought back home with me.....

More about Frankfurt soon...

Alicia

Wordless Wednesday

2011-06-08T00:47:00.001+01:00

My visit to Karlsruhe

2011-06-06T00:28:00.000+01:00

After St Ives and my trip to Cornwall (which I will put more pictures about! some time soon...), I went to Germany to Nadelwelt Karlsruhe, a new needlecraft fair (dominated by quilting), sponsored by the excellent German magazine Patchwork Professional. I was invited to teach two different workshops there, and it was a fantastic experience.

There were many excellent exhibitions there: Nancy Crow's Color Improvisations, Quilts from Sweden to Israel, Noriko Endo, Gudrun Heinz's Textile News, and others. Unfortunately photography was strictly not allowed in the exhibitions! So I will have to entertain my blog visitors with photographs of Karlsruhe instead.

This is a view from my hotel window.

I could also see the trams passing by - trams and bicycles are the most common form of transport in Karlsruhe, which is a very flat city.

There are a lot of fountains in the streets - it was actually very hot most of the time - the one in this shopping centre was quite extraordinary - water shot out from a hole on one end and crashed on a small contained on the other end, after describing a semicircular path above the rest of the fountain. It was not continuous but intermittent. I managed to take this 'stop-time' photo by altering the settings in my camera - the water looks frozen in time, as if it were glass.

There are beautiful Botanical Gardens and parks - I took this photo of the extraordinary knotted tree trunk in one of the parks.

The sculpture below is in the gardens of the Opera House, and it was not green - the green is from the lights that illuminated it.

But the best thing in Karlsruhe, according to my husband, was the beer! This glass was drunk by him in a garden cafe on a hot sunny day.

More soon!

Alicia

St Ives - roofs

2011-05-24T00:23:00.000+01:00

I have recently been to St Ives....will post more pictures soon.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-05-11T00:48:00.002+01:00

Alphonse Mucha

2011-05-10T01:13:00.000+01:00

Alphonse Mucha was a Czech Art Nouveau artist, who originally became famous for his graphic designs for Paris theatre posters for the actress Sarah Bernhardt.

We saw the Mucha Museum in Prague. The image below comes from the Museum guide - a short leaflet, but very informative.

It is clearly of a fascinating era!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-05-04T23:54:00.002+01:00

The roses are back!

2011-04-28T16:08:00.002+01:00

Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-27T00:52:00.002+01:00

Twelve by Twelve at Midsomer Quilting

2011-04-21T00:19:00.000+01:00

Today I went to visit the Twelve by Twelve exhibition at Midsomer Quilting. Quite fascinating. And the classroom has been completely transformed to show the small quilts. It is well worth going if you are within driving distance, as it is such a friendly quilt shop, and the exhibition is very user-friendly - you can also have a cup of tea and sit comfortably to drink it at your leisure and talk to other visitors.

Unfortunately it is only on for four days - until Saturday - open from 10 am to 4 pm.

Fortunately it will also be shown at the Festival of Quilts, before travelling to Houston.

You can find lots of information about the group and their challenges in their website: Twelve by Twelve

The book is excellent as well.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-20T00:20:00.000+01:00

St Vitus Cathedral, Prague - Mucha stained-glass window

2011-04-18T00:37:00.000+01:00

I'm finally getting back to posting more photos of Prague. Just too busy making quilts! so blog posting gets postponed.

St Vitus Cathedral is within the area of the Prague Castle, perched above the town. It is Gothic in style, although in fact was not finished until quite recently - some time in the 20th century.

It is extremely large and very beautiful. But what struck me most when I went inside, was the stained glass windows, which are modern, as the original ones were destroyed in the 17th century.

There are a number of windows, some constructed with a very interesting mosaic technique, with amazing colour combinations, which I will post at a future date. But the most striking of all the windows is the one designed by Alphonse Mucha, the famous Czech Art-Nouveau artist. It is quite extraordinary, and most unusual for a cathedral.

The detail of the figures are best appreciated in close-ups; below are the top and bottom areas of the window photographed separately:

Even so, the above are not close-up enough. Luckily, I had with me my amazing new Canon SX30 IS, a so-called 'bridge' camera (bigger than a compact, but smaller than a DSLR) and which has this extraordinary zoom lens that goes from a 24 mm wide angle to an 840 telephoto lens. So the following pictures were taken from the same place as the above pics - I did not have to climb onto ladders to get nearer the spots!

This group is in the lower part of the window, and also contains an ad for the window's sponsors - a bank.

This is the figure at the very top of the window - I presume it is Christ - I would guess a likely 10 metres away from me and my camera.

This is my figure figure, right below the other one - I don't know who it is supposed to represent - but it definitely has the look of an Art Nouveau figure, and it is not at all like the sort of Virgin representations one expects to find in churches.

The whole design is amazing, but what really left me breathless was the colour - not only of this window, but of the others too - just one of those experiences where you whole body and mind feels like WOWWOWWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW! and you can't bear to leave the place.

Hope you enjoyed the images!

Good night!

Alicia

Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-13T00:45:00.000+01:00

My visit to Prague

2011-04-11T00:17:00.000+01:00

I haven't blogged for a while mainly because I went to Prague. I attended the Prague Patchwork Meeting, where I showed some of my quilts, and taught a couple of workshops. It was a wonderful experience. Czech quilters are very talented, they produce beautiful work and are interested in what is going on in the rest of the quilting world.

Then, on my return, I have spent the last few days working very hard to finish some quilts for my exhibition at the Carrefour du Patchwork in France - there was a deadline for sending images for the catalogue.

Here are some first impressions of Prague. We were very lucky with the weather, which was mostly warm and sunny - just like the last few days in Britain.

Charles Bridge is one of the best known features of the city. It was the first, and for a long time the only one, bridge over the river Vlatava. It is adorned with statues of saints, and has a tower and arch at each end. It is also full of tourists and street sellers!

There are beautiful views from the bridge.

Trams are a great form of transport. In general, public transport in Prague is first rate.

We walked along the small crowded streets of the Old City to the main square. The towers of St Mary's Church are beautiful.

The Astronomical Clock is quite a magnet, attracting crowds of visitors.

On the other side of the river, Prague Castle is an important feature of the city. We spent quite a lot of time there; within it is St Vitus' Cathedral, a fascinating gothic building with the most amazing stained glass windows.

Next time I will show some stained glass windows and their amazing colours. For now, I leave off with a view of Prague from the Castle.

Good night, and thanks for visiting.

Alicia

Spring is here

2011-03-29T00:03:00.002+01:00

Textile Map Making

2011-03-27T02:08:00.000+01:00

This Saturday I attended a conference on Maps and Mapmaking organised by Textile Forum South West. A very good day, with excellent speakers, showing many different points of view on maps and making, and other related activities - among them the Pompom Project. This is a networking project, involving several stages: making the pompoms, hanging them in and around the place where you live, photographing them, and bringing them to the conference, together with the photographs. Also, miniature pompoms were pinned on a map of the South West of England, on the places where group members live, and string was used to link the pins on the map with Taunton, where the conference was being held, to study the network of textile makers. Very interesting!

I tied my pompoms to an old fashioned street light and photographed them against the background of Wells Cathedral.

There will be an exhibition of members' work next March/April, 2012, on the theme of "Mapping the Future: Where are you now?", at The Brewhouse Theatre and Arts Centre, Taunton, Somerset.

I shall be taking part!

Alicia

I'm a cover girl again!

2011-03-25T12:21:00.000Z

This was a great surprise when I received it this morning - my Journal Quilts 2009 are on the cover of Kludemagasinet, the journal of the Danish Quilt Guild. The magazine was sent to me by the British Guild's International Rep (thank you Fiona!).

My orchids glow in the late afternoon sun...

2011-03-22T01:05:00.001Z

...the only time the sun touches them - they need lots of light, but not direct sunlight.

First balloon of the season!

2011-03-20T19:46:00.001Z

Magnolia Stellata - my garden and colour

2011-03-18T12:33:00.000Z

This is the magnolia shrub in my garden. I always wonder why the flowers come out first, early in Spring, and the leaves only very much later, by which time the flowers are all but gone. The flowers are mostly white, but white for me is a colour too - in the sun, they shine with a velvety touch. The shadows give a variation of different whites. The centres have a peachy colour to them.

There was a gigantic magnolia tree (the grandiflora type) at the bottom of my childhood garden in Buenos Aires. The tree was in the neighbour's garden, on the other side of our back garden wall, but the tree was so large that most of its crown showed over the wall. In spring, it was covered in imposing large white flowers (sometimes with a touch of pink) which gave a wonderful smell. In the summer, the dark green leaves also offered a lovely view. The neighbour's garden and house were huge - its entrance was on the next street to ours - and I never met them, nor visited the garden.

In our house in London we planted a magnolia tree in the front garden, which also flowered beautifully, but it was much smaller than the one in Argentina - somewhere between a tree and a shrub in size. Not sure what type it was - not a strellata, but a bit smaller than the grandiflora - possibly a soulangeana, from I can gather by googling 'magnolia types'. I'm not really a gardener - the point of a garden for me is colour! In Wells I choose the flowers for our garden by their colour - and they do not always survive the winter... We only have a few daffodils flowering now - the snow drops have gone - but the whole garden is in bud, and the rose bushes - my favourite flower - are shaping up beautifully.

I just discovered that magnolias originate in Japan... Glad of having the internet...

Thanks for reading - have a nice weekend!

Alicia

ArtePatchwork

2011-03-17T23:32:00.000Z

The Spanish magazine ArtePatchwork has published an article about my work.

Other gardens have more daffodils...

2011-03-11T22:56:00.000Z

This beautiful bunch of daffodils is a present from a friend.

First daffodil of the season in my garden

2011-03-10T12:06:00.000Z

Pericallis

2011-03-07T19:37:00.001Z

This is my new flower, Pericallis - it is very purple in real life, but the photographs show it rather blue...

One of the swans in the Bishop's Palace moat, Wells

2011-03-05T11:17:00.000Z

The swans are supposed to be able to ring a bell placed on the wall of the moat, when they want some food.

A Thursday photo

2011-03-03T00:35:00.000Z

Photo of the day

2011-03-01T08:01:00.002Z

Carpet of early spring flowers - Dartington Hall Gardens, Devon

2011-02-27T14:18:00.000Z

Photo of the day

2011-02-26T21:31:00.000Z

Waiting for the arrival of colour...

2011-02-22T02:04:00.000Z

... wonderful fabrics which should be arriving soon, dyed by Nienke Smit.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-16T18:17:00.000Z

Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-09T21:17:00.000Z

Colour Juxtaposition

2011-02-07T00:36:00.000Z

The effects of colour juxtaposition on the look of a textile piece is an important concept which I take into account in my work. Both Itten and Albers discuss it in their books.

When two colours are placed together, each one is affected by the other one, because of their afterimages. (See my post of Tuesday 25th January, about Colour and Simultaneous Contrast, where I talk about afterimages and how to see them).

When pairing one and the same colour with a variety of different colours, the different colour of each of the afterimages will affect your perception of those colours.

In the image below, I have placed small rectangles of the same light lavender colour fabric in the centre of rectangles of fabrics of other, strong, saturated colours. I have used fabric rather than painted paper. And I have used commercial plain colour fabrics, not hand-dyed fabrics where the colours change in different areas.

Each lavender square look slightly different in each case. Some look brighter, some look duller, some look darker. Have a good look and make a note of what you see:

- If I hadn't told you that the lavender pieces are all of the same colour, could you honestly say that they are actually of exactly the same colour? or would you think they are slightly different? or would you just wonder and be doubtful?

- What are the differences in tone and value you can see between the different colour combinations?

- Try to look intently, for a few seconds, at only one rectangle at a time - cover the others. You might see a third colour forming near where the two colours meet. That's an effect of the afterimages.

What is happening is that your brain is producing the afterimages of the colours you are looking at, and superimposing them on the other colour/s. The afterimage is always a faint version of the complementary colour.

So each colour will be tinged by the afterimage of the other colour. This is visible on the lavender more than on the other colours, because it is lighter and closer to neutral, and because you can compare. The strong background colours are also affected by the afterimage of the lavender, but here you are not able to make comparisons.

Here is another example of how the surrounding colour/s affect a colour.

Look at the two brown fabric squares. One is on yellow fabric, the other one is on blue fabric. They are separated by two fabric strips, one orange and one navy. It is obvious to me that the square on the left side is darker than the square on the right hand side. That is what most people see.

Would you say that the brown squares have been cut from two different brown fabrics? Well, they have not. They are exactly the same piece of fabric, and the colour difference arise from the background they are placed on top of, and the colours they are next too.

To prove it, here is a photo of the brown strip on its yellow and blue background, but with the central two strips removed. You can see it is just one fabric! However, if you carefully look at the two ends of the strip, you should still be able to see, albeit more faintly, the colour differences produced by the way their backgrounds and their afterimages affect the look of the brown. It will become more noticeable if you place your hand vertically in front of the screen, so that it blocks the centre of the image, where the two strips were before.

Similar examples to these are used in classes on colour theory and some of you, readers, may have come across them before. But what I ask you to do, is not to treat them as 'theory' but as real effects, which you should consider in your practice. Do go back to auditioning fabrics and intuition when you choose colours for your work - that's absolutely fine to do, I do it too - but keep these concepts in the back of your mind, until they become automatic and intuitive - and take them into account when you make your colour choices.

Till next time! Thanks for visiting!

Alicia

Dogwood by the lake in Kilver Court

2011-02-05T21:35:00.000Z

Today is my birthday and this is where we went to celebrate it - a nice family lunch and a walk in the beautiful gardens of Kilver Court.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-02T00:22:00.000Z

Gabriel Orozco: Samurai Tree Invariants and the use of colour

2011-02-01T13:41:00.002Z

I was in London this weekend and went to Tate Modern to see an exhibition of Gabriel Orozco's work - weird and wonderful! No photography allowed... So here are links to some really interesting videos of his work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS7b6wm2aVk

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1029

His Samurai Tree Invariants are what fascinates me most - a series of 672 variations on a theme. Only four prints were on show in London, but you could buy a book with all of them - terribly expensive though. It is a computer generated design using circles of different size, following certain rules, which he then filled with four colours - blue, red, white and gold. By changing the colours of the circles (half circles, quarter circles) and of the background, he produced a huge number of variations. The circular shapes can stand out, or they can disappear, when they are painted in the same colour as the background. Fascinating!

Have a look! You can also google Orozco's images.

Colour on a grey day

2011-02-01T00:12:00.000Z

We were in London for the weekend, and on Saturday morning we went for a walk on Hampstead Heath, our favourite park and our home haunt for several decades. It was a grey and very cold day, livened up by the colourful mass of 13 year-old runners in the final of the Southern Counties race...

I am a cover girl!

2011-01-27T00:10:00.000Z

This is the cover of the current issue of the German magazine Patchwork Professional, which features an article about my work, and a step-by-step project by me on how to make a small ColourScape. I am delighted to be in it, and on the cover!

It is a superb magazine - this issue features several other amazing quilters, European and American, and I am honoured to be in such good company!

Thanks for visiting!

Alicia

Wordless Wednesday

2011-01-26T00:11:00.000Z

Colour and contrast

2011-01-25T01:48:00.012Z

In his seminal book The Elements of Colour, Johannes Itten talks about The Seven Colour Contrasts, and emphasizes that "each one is unique in character and artistic value; in visual, expressive and symbolic effect; and together they constitute the fundamental resource of colour design".

Quite big words to express something that when explained, much of it will look familiar; but some of it less so. Itten lists the seven colour contrasts as follows:

1. Contrast of hue: for example, yellow, red and blue.
2. Light-dark contrast: most clearly expressed with black and white.
3. Cold-warm contrast: a way of express something we are quite familiar with: the cool feeling given by greens and blues, the warm emanations given by reds and oranges.
4. Complementary contrast: it refers to opposite colours in the colour wheel, which when mixed together as pigments, will yield a neutral gray-black. They are opposite, but they are necessary to each other.
5. Simultaneous contrast: the most difficult to understand, and the one I will talk about below.
6. Contrast of saturation: the contrast between fully saturated colours and their diluted versions (diluted either with white, with black, or with grey).
7. Contrast of extension: this refers to the relative areas of two different colours - the proportions of colours used in an area. For example, an area of violet with a few touches of yellow will look very different to an area of yellow with some small dots of violet.

Now to SIMULTANEOUS CONTRAST. Itten says: "Simultaneous contrast results from the fact that for any given colour the eye simultaneously requires the complementary colour, and generates it spontaneously if it is not already present".

It is not something which is objectively present. It is in the eye of the beholder - it is generated by the eye and brain of the viewer. It can be explained by doing an experiment that many of us would have done as children.

Here are two squares: a red one on the left, and whitish one on the right. Both have a black dot in the middle. Look at the red square on the left, fixing your eyes in the black dot in the centre. Keep your eyes fixed on that dot for about 20 seconds. Not easy to stop your eyes from wandering? Do try!

Immediately after look at the right hand white square. You will see a pale green or blue-green square. That is your eye and brain generating the opposite colour to red. We call it an afterimage.

Now, if the right hand square was green or blue-green, rather than white, and you did the same experiment, you will be very unlikely to notice the green afterimage. But the fact that you don’t see it doesn’t mean that it is not there – it is. When the eye moves across the colours in a piece of work, or fabrics, or anything else for that matters, it sees not only what it is viewing, but also the afterimage of the colour previously seen. All the colours you are seeing are tinged by their complementary colour, generated by your eye and brain.

This effect, called simultaneous contrast, affects everybody’s colour viewing, and can be used for all sorts of effects by artists – whether in paint or fabric – to emphasize the intensity of the colours (as I do) or to tone them down. Robert Delaunay is particularly well known for consciously and expressly experiment with simultaneous contrast in his paintings. But he wasn't the first: Leonardo da Vinci noted that adjacent colours seem to influence each other; and the French chemist Michel Eugéne Chevreul studied it thoroughly and published a book about it.

There is a lot more to it, but that’s enough for today!

Thanks for visiting! See you soon!

Alicia