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
Congratulations on being selected for this stimulating and challenging project. I am so pleased to read the word 'positive'. I was at K&S Harrogate yesterday and so many of the works had been inspired by the negative in society and nature that I felt quite depressed by the end of the day. Glad to hear you're not flooded 'chez vous'.
ReplyDeleteThank you Julie. I am very keen to do work on the 'positive' side of things - I would only do a work on something 'negative' to highlight the problem and encourage people to change it. Earlier this year I made a quilt called Climate Change which highlighted what could happen if we don't take action. It has not been seen in this country, it was for the Carrefour du Patchwork annual competition and it will travel for a year. When I get it back next year I will try and show it somewhere in the UK.
ReplyDeleteYes, we've been lucky round this town, but there is a lot of flooding in the areas around it. Keep fingers crossed that it won't rain so heavily again.
What an honour to present the Somerset Levels on the world stage in stitch. Please do keep blogging - be it photos or words you always have something interesting to say. Pam
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