I have actually been having a wonderfully creative time since my last post! I attended the 4 days of the Australasian Quilt Convention here in Melbourne, and did a fabulous 4 day course with Kay Haerland on "Realistic Landscapes". http://kayhaerland.com/ Such a talented quilt artist and generous teacher! AQC is without a doubt the highlight of my year!
This year for the first time, my daughter Brigetta and her friend did two days of AQC as well. They did a day workshop with Deborah Louie on free-motion quilting, and a second day with Lesley Riley on TAP and Lutrador. They were definitely the youngest delegates and were made much fuss of, but had an absolute ball! Thanks to Lesley and Deborah who were so welcoming and inclusive, and assured me that the girls had no trouble keeping up with the other participants.
The following week I was very fortunate to do a 3 day "Abstracting from Nature" workshop with Jane Sassaman www.janesassaman.com/ at Kraft Koulour kraftkolour.com.au/ So from realism to abstraction in the space of a week. I reckon the creative part of my brain was glowing when I went to bed at night! However, I am not sure that I really made the leap into abstraction....
For the International Quilt Challenge theme of Time, I had planned a long banner of the different life cycle stages of a dandelion, and have completed the design on paper, but have yet to do anything about transferring the idea into fabric. How appropriate this theme has turned out to be for me, because time has been even more of an issue for me this past month than usual. And that means I am late with this challenge, and it is not even finished yet!
But...as I was working on this quilt, "Survival", I realised that it is really about time, so I hope it is not cheating to adopt this as my challenge quilt. Not just because of the lack of time I have had to make the dandelion quilt, but because this quilt is about the really difficult journey towards survival (of individuals, families and communities) after a disaster. It is inspired by the devastating "Black Saturday" bushfires, here in Victoria, just over 3 years ago. I don't really feel comfortable providing an "artist statement" about the different elements, and hope that it is sufficient that the quilt speaks for itself.
Surprisingly, this is actually the result of the Jane Sassaman workshop. I know, hardly abstract, but this is actually a very meaningful quilt for me, and I am pleased with it so far. I will post another photo when it is completed.
