After the fire, the floods and the snow

My last post, exactly a month ago, was a seasonal greetings card with a big bonfire on it - one of my own pictures.  Since then, Somerset was flooded because of the heavy rains in December, and now in January, we have snow.  Floods were very inconvenient and upsetting to a lot of people, while snow is pretty on the first day - then it gets either slushy, or icy, or both.

Here are some photos of the first day snow taken through the windows of my house - I didn't have to go out at all!  I'm staying at home catching up with a lot of things, hopefully until the snow clears out.

View from the front room window

My neighbour's tree, full view and close-ups.  It was snowing lightly.

Garden table and chairs

Happy Festive Season

I wish the happiest Christmas, and a wonderful and creative New Year, to all my friends and family!

Cheers!!!

Alicia

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

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

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

Heidelberg

I have not posted for a few weeks because I have been away, first in Heidelberg to attend the opening of the 5th European Quilt Triennial, where I have a quilt, and then to Ste Marie aux Mines to teach at the Carrefour du Patchwork.

Heidelberg is a beautiful city and we were very lucky with the weather - in fact it was very hot!  The views from the castle are magnificent - see the photo below.

...and here is a view of the Triennial exhibition opening at the TextilMuseum Max Berg.  Can you tell which one is my quilt?  No prizes!

The View From Here by ColourFX

ColourFX's exhibition "The View From Here" will be at the Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury, from 22nd September to 15th December.

I will be giving two Gallery Talks and Demos, and Christine Restall will be giving one session.  All the information is in the leaflet below.

Come and see it if you are in the area! Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm.  Closed on Sundays and Mondays.

Alicia

English Summer, 2012

Wordless Wednesday

The Museum of Glass - an amazing experience

I visited Israel for the first time in 1964 (yes, no date error).  I came from Argentina to Europe in a boat, with a group of young people.  We spent a month in Israel, including five days in a kibbutz, and then went on to Italy and France.

The main visual images left in my mind by that trip were:

-  in France, Chartres Cathedral, and the Impressionists at the Jeu de Pomme.
-  in Italy, the Sistine Chapel and the fountains in Rome,  Florence (all of it), and the medieval town of San Geminiano.
-  in Israel, the barbed wire that then separated Jerusalem in two halves; listening to 'a capella' singing in one of the churches;  the glass-bottomed boat watching the fishes of the Red Sea, in Eilat;  and the Museum of Glass, somewhere in Israel, which made a huge impression on me.

Since then, every time I visited Israel I asked about the Museum of Glass - but nobody had heard about or knew where it could be.  I wanted to see it again!

On this trip, after the quilting conference, I stayed another day in Jerusalem and went to see first the Chagall stained-glass windows at the Hadassa Hospital synagogue, and then spent the rest of the day at the Museum of Israel.  I saw a lot of fabulous things - from the Dead Sea scrolls to wonderful examples of modern art, including lots of Picassos, Klees and Kandinskys (donated or lent by wealthy American collectors).  Eventually towards the end of the day I decided to explore the Archeology section.

And Lo and Behold!  Past the first big burial pots, I found a room containing the whole of the Museum of Glass!  I was in seventh heaven!  It tells the story of glass, how it is made from simple elements like sand, and how it evolved historically and came to be what it is now.

Here are a few photos of items in the collection.  Early glass has a lot of mica in it, it is not so purified, so it looks less transparent.