Blowing the trumpet

Although I write a blog, and I do have an instagram account, blowing my own trumpet is not one of my strong sides. I hardly ever use facebook anymore, and although I have an account on Pinterest I never post there anymore, I would probably have to search for the password and ID to enter the account. All of this, I think, contributes to the fact thatmy artmaking has never really ‘taken off the ground’ in terms of the kind of success that could have been possible. I don’t like marketing myself, I am not good at it and I would certainly “rather be in the studio” (as that book title goes, which I have on my shelf but never even finished reading) or somewhere else MAKING.

So even when marketing material is being put on my plate it requires a special effort on my side to put that to use.

A couple of days ago it happened that I received a mail from the SAQA exhibition coordinator about another venue that had been added to the itinerary of “Masterwork: Abstract & Geometric” exhibition. My quilt Play of Lines VIII is in that exhibition and has been traveling for a while now. To be honest, when a quilt is ‘on the road’ I don’t usually keep track of where it is, which venue is showing it right now. Only when I receive a mail with the latest news do I take note. So the exhibition will be coming to Germany, too, and it will be shown at the Textilmuseum Max Berk in Heidelberg. That indeed is a location where I have not had a quilt shown yet, and I do feel a certain pleasure at this now. The particular quilt has been shown in that geographical area  a couple of times, Suttgart, Karlsruhe, Ste. Marie-aux-Mines, but the fact that it will make an appearance in that particular museum is a very nice development.

In that same mail Bill included the list of venues where the show had been shown before – including Japan and China. 

International Quilt Festival – Houston, Texas: November 2017

International Quilt Festival – Chicago, Illinois: April 2018

Quilt & Stitch Show - Tokyo, Japan: October 4 - 6, 2018

Quilt & Stitch Show - Osaka, Japan: November 8 - 10, 2018

Quilt & Stitch Show - Nagoya, Japan: March 28 - 30, 2019

Crosstown Arts – Memphis, Tennessee: May 10 - July 28, 2019

11th Asia Quilt Festival - Shanghai, China: September 20 - 22, 2019

Max Berk Textile Museum, Palatinate Museum (Textilsammlung Max Berk / Kurpfälzisches Museum) - Heidelberg, Germany: February 16, 2020 - June 21, 2020. 

Original Sewing & Quilt Expo - Raleigh, North Carolina: July 20 - August 1, 2020

Original Sewing & Quilt Expo - Arlington, Texas: August 27 - 29, 2020

Original Sewing & Quilt Expo - Cincinnati, Ohio: September 17 - 19, 2020

Original Sewing & Quilt Expo - Fredericksburg, Virginia: October 8 - 10, 2020

Original Sewing & Quilt Expo - Novi, Michigan: November 12 - 14, 2020

Nice to know that my quilts get to travel to places where I have never been. That is a confirmation of the line of reasoning which was used on the document I received with my City of Vilsbiburg Cultural Award last year, “the international recognition she receives”. Yeah, a blow in my trumpet!

And a few others of my quilts are traveling, the reduced output I have managed last year has been well received. There is ‘Everyone has the right’ in the Forced to Flee exhibition, you can check the calendar here http://www.saqa.com/memberArt.php?cat=8&ec=3&ex=94, and there is “Here Comes the Sun”, currently in France.

I am also showing two quilts at Festival of Quilts this very weekend, namely “A Scrap a Day” 

and “Girl Power”. And I got interviewed for the Bernina blog about “A Scrap a Day”, so if I am lucky there will be an episode about that on the blog or channel or whatever medium they choose in the near future when editing is done. Ta taa….