Festival of Quilts at Birmingham, once again

Last week I have been to and on Monday returned from the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. 

I am beginning to lose track of how many times I have been to that event and venue, and the whole procedure is getting to be a bit of a routine. I know my way from the airport to the hotel and the exhibition halls, I love the fact that the venue is so conveniently located to the airport. I enjoy being able to walk to the hotel with my bags (praise to the person who invented the wheel, and to the person who put suitcases on wheels!) from the airport, and back. 

It has become an important place to renew contact with many people whom I don’t get to see often, 

The SAQA dinner always is one of the highlights of the event.

and I use the setup to find topics/people to write about for the German Guild’s Magazine. With floor plan in hand and very little of a pre-set mind I make sure to see every single gallery with special exhibitions unless I have seen it before. At FoQ this year, ‘Stuff for Thought’, e.g. was one gallery that I did not look at in detail anymore because I had had three other opportunities where I could see it.

Some galleries I don’t spend a lot of time in, but the ones that touch me I can while away a lot of time in. 

I make sure to see every ‘winner’ in the winner’s gallery, 

Philippa Naylor, Circuit Training, 1st prize winner of Miniature Quilts

Philippa Naylor, Circuit Training, 1st prize winner of Miniature Quilts, detail

and I do go through the aisles of competition entries, pausing to look closer at those the somehow catch my eye.

A very interesting interpretation of the famous Japanese wood cut of a huge
wave (is it a tsunami?) - in plastic -

Anthropogenic Wave - Kay McKiernan, Detail

And I use the time to perhaps conduct an interview with an interesting exhibitor so I can then write an article for the magazine. 

 

Ruth Singer, 'Traces'

Ruth Singer with a quilt in her exhibition "Criminal Quilts"

One of the photos of prisoner women on their release from
prison that inspired Ruth Singer's exhibition

At FoQ, the one gallery that impressed me most was one the setup and preparation of which I had been following on Instagram, ‘The Button Box’. I was really impressed with the theme of the history of appreciation of textiles and needle work in recent centuries, and very touched by the quotes from literary works in which remarks about the importance and significance of textiles accompanied the works on the wall. It reminded me of a quote from a German turn of the 19^th century novel by Gabriele Reuter, ‘From a Good Family’, which describes a young girl’s development from expectant girl from a good family to an old spinster, who will never be married and is completely disillusioned in the end. At some point towards the end of the novel she is sitting next to her ailing mother whom she is taking care of at that time, stitching some doily, and questions herself ‘how many superfluous doilies have I stitched in my life, by the way?’ I remember how deeply I was shocked when I first read that sentence. And that sentiment somehow was represented in that wonderful exhibition in Birmingham.

 

'Up in a Minute', Christine Chester

 

'Up in a Minute', Christine Chester, detail

So Birmingham is an important and interesting date for me, but very tiring. This year the Hilton did not have reliable wi-fi for the entire time of my stay, which is highly annoying. The quality of food has never been up to the price you have to pay for it, but that’s the price to have to pay for the other conveniences of being put up there. If I had to pay for my own hotel stay, I would certainly choose a different accomodation.

It’s good to be on vacation now with the family.

Recently Found Art

Bildunterschrift hinzufügen

Success?

Last week I spent a few days in a small holiday apartment south of the city of Bamberg while my son was at basketball camp. Originally we had planned to go on a three-day-bike trip right afterwards, I had the bikes in the car and while the time away stitching, spinning, reading, sleeping. When preparing everything and packing, we realized that my pretty urgent desire to reduce our consumption of throw-away plastic items that I have been following has been rather successful. I keep being reminded of the necessity to further follow that intention with determination when I see pictures like this on Instagram, on the internet, or just see plastic trash lying around when people did not dispose of their waste properly.

Screenshot from Instagram -
frightening.

Not only have I noticed that the number of bags containing plastic waste that we put out for collection has gone down quite a bit (it used to be up to 5 or 6, now it is only 2, at the most, sometimes less), but we also could not find a single plastic bag in the house in which to wrap our belongings that we would have wanted to take on the trip, to protect them from possible rain.
Bike trip experience has taught me that it is useful to do that. We left without having pre-wrapped anything, and I thought I could perhaps get (i.e. BUY) some sturdy trash bags should weather be looking grim with the danger of rain interfering with our trip. As it turns out, it has been so hot here in Germany, that we canceled the bike trip. If I had been on my own, I probably still would have gone, but my son is 13, I had hoped to introduce him to a more-than-one-day bike trip to show him how much fun it is, but with temperatures in the range of mid-30Centigrades it would have not worked. He would have hated it and me forever, so we came back home. I never needed to think about plastic bags again.

It is still very hot, with feeble attempts to stay 'cool' inside (we, this being Germany, of course don't have air conditioning). The water in the swimming pool is too warm for my taste by now, exercising outside is almost unbearable, and working on a longarm commission makes me break out in sweat.

But I finished it in record time as this is meant to be a wedding present for a wedding in ten days, and I am going to Birmingham on Wednesday.
So we are using less plastic. But we are suffering from climate change dramatically here - at least this summer. Of course, the American President has decreed that there is no such thing...

Awarded

On my return trip from the island I received a phone call that informed me of the fact that I had been chosen to be the recipient of the annual Cultural Award of my town, for my 'Art with its individual message, and the international recognition thereof'.
At first I was very surprised because I never thought about the possibility of receiving that award. But I did get used to the thought, came up with a guest list, asked Barbara Lange to give the laudatory speech, and last Thursday it all happened.

I put up a few quilts in the room where the ceremony took place.

Barbara gave a wonderful speech, and so did I. I received a medal, a certificate, and a check.
My son has claimed the medal because he says he had an important part in my artistic development, which is correct.

And this is the moment after the mayor awarded it all.

Now there is only one week of teaching the refugee class left, and then a lot of things will change. It will be interesting to see how things develop, how much time there will be left for art.

Naming the Baby

After a few weeks break on and distance to the project that I was working on during the textile artist symposium due to vacation, teaching and another absence with mytrip to the island I have come back. It was taking its time, and although I wasn’t sure why I listened to my inner voice that kept telling me to wait before continuing. During that process I decided not to stitch the contours on the remaining three articles that are rather fine in the handwriting.

Backside view of the Thai script, one of the articles I decided to not give a contour.

I also decided against putting the finished piece onto a wooden frame, which had been my original thought. Mostly because I have never put a quilt of that size onto a wooden frame, my experience is constricted to smaller sized pieces, and I did not want to risk anything with this piece.

So today, after finishing the side facings and attaching the fabric that will be the lower tunnel, I sat down with my husband for a bit of brainstorming while he was watching the first quarter final of the World Championships. The working title ‘text messages 18’ is just not expressive enough.

And I arrived at the decision to call it “#UDHR (text messages 18)”. 

Now I can finish the remaining steps, and am planning to take it to be photographed on Monday, and deliver it to the city authorities.

SAQA-Exhibition "Made in Europe" now on display in Munich

This past Friday I went to Munich to prepare the SAQA-Exhibition "Made in Europe" for its two-week sojounr in Munich.

the bookkeeping

well-prepared - the quilts cam out of the box
in alphabetical order

designated rods for hanging

Due to the fact that this was a very well prepared shipment that I had received, hanging was quick and easy, I was finished after just over two hours.
Here is a glimpse into the gallery upstairs.

The gallery is open during shop opening hours of quilt et textilkunst until the 14th of July.