Pacific
Piecemakers Quilt Guild
Bits
& Pieces
September 2002
-- Volume 7, Issue 9
Claire
McCarthy, Editor
Surviving
Mid-Life as a Quilt Artist
Friday,
September 20, 12:45 p.m., Gualala Arts Center
We are thrilled to have David Walker as our
speaker for September's meeting. David is an internationally
acclaimed quilt artist who has taught, lectured and exhibited his
quilts throughout the world. His
topic will be "Surviving Mid Life as a Quilt Artist."
It will be the story of
David's own personal journey
as he travels through life and expresses his emotional and
spiritual self in his quilts. He will describe the more personal
and spiritual resources that have influenced his design process
and the expression of personal images. He says, "Through
slides and the showing of actual quilts, hopefully, what I have
to share will serve as a springboard for the listener's own
creative work in the studio. It
is my hope to inspire the gifts of self confidence, enthusiasm
and courage."
Many of us
will be taking David's workshop "Layering Images"
(which filled up very fast) during the week before the Guild
meeting.
October Meeting Preview: The October meeting will
be a comfort quilt workshop. Save
the day and bring a lunch. The meeting has been changed to
October 11th which is the second Friday. Please attend and assist
in creating the lovely small quilts that go out into our
community to help those in need. The workshop will be from
9:30-3:30 with a lunch/meeting break around 12:45. We are also planning to have
a Flea Market in the morning of October 11th before beginning
construction of comfort quilts. Members will be encouraged to
clean out their stashes of unwanted, unused fabric, extra tools
and quilting, sewing odds and ends and sell them. One
quilter’s extras are other quilter’s treasures.
Yes!!
Big Kudos
go to Donna Blum and Miriam Littlejohn for their
leadership in this year's Art in the Redwoods event.
They and
their committees created a successful booth to finance our
guild programs and a sensational quilt for the scholarship
raffle. They involved many guild members in the effort to produce
items for sale, and to hand quilt the elegant "Twilight
Star".
Uncounted
hours over many months went into these two daunting challenges.
None of it was easy. Some of it was fun. Much of it seemed
thankless. But we all benefit from their efforts. To all who
volunteered to help,
thanks
for saying YES!
Paula Osborne
Cancellation Notice
Edith
Carmen has decided that she does not have enough extra fabric to
warrant a sale, so the Fabric Flea Market announced in the August
Bits & Pieces for Friday September 6 at GAC has been cancelled.
BEGINNING PIECING
CLASS
In
this six week class students will make a sampler quilt top from
ten different blocks. Experienced PPQG members will teach rotary
cutting, piecing, sets, borders and binding. Everything from the
basics of block construction to finishing techniques will be
covered.
The class
will be held on consecutive Wednesdays from 9:30-12:30 beginning
September 25th through October 30th.
The class fee is $80. Payment
may be sent to Connie Seale, P.O. Box 926, Gualala. Checks are to
be made out to "Connie Seale FBO PPQG". Upon receipt of
your class fee Connie will send you a supplies list. A
forward-reverse sewing machine in good working order is required.
Register quickly as class space is limited. Call Anita, 785-3671, with
questions.
September Birthdays
1—Lenore
Sollom; 15—Gail Sims; 18—Zoe Smith; 20—Cynthia
Chilton; 21—Claire McPherson; 22—Virginia Trautman;
24—Christine
Francis; 29—Jenny Rexon
Guild
Glimmers
by
Donna Blum
The Art in
the Redwoods booth was a great success due to the many
guild members who worked on this project since last February.
Total sales were over $3,000. The booth was filled with 556
beautiful and creative items donated by 44 guild members and
individuals. Three quarters of the booth items sold and 70 raffle
tickets were sold. Clearly we were our own best customers with at
least 50% of the items being sold to guild members or their
families.
The
remaining booth items will be sold at a 10% discount at the November
Guild Meeting.
Any members wishing to retrieve their "donation" before
the Nov. sale should contact Donna Blum, 785-3625. There are
still many beautiful placemats, gift baskets, quilts, Guild note
card sets and wall hangings available for holiday gift-giving. The Great Hanging
by a Thread Raffle: The winning ticket will
be drawn at the Sept. Guild Meeting. If you have not yet donated
a spool of new thread, please bring it to the Sept. meeting.
Tickets are only $1.00 for a chance to win this fabulous
collection of decorative threads.
The AIR
booth is really a
total guild project.
The Booth Committee of five members could not have had this
wonderful success without the participation of so many guild
members. Special thanks must go to the committee
members: Donna Blum, Joyce Gaudet, Laurie Mueller, Jolley
Thomas and Pam Wilson, who quilted and sewed their little hearts
out and, alone, accounted for almost ¼ of the items produced for
the booth. We are also grateful to the husbands ( Doug Blum,
Floyd Cotton and Leigh Mueller) who helped to set up and
dismantle our booth tents. A
big hug and thanks go to all the guild members who helped with
the booth: Linda Cotton,
Linda Warnock, Jeri Taylor, Teresa Kohlmeister, Pat Ditzler,
Janet Sears, Ellen Soule, Cynthia Chilton, Kathy Hitt, Julie
Verran, Bev Sloan, Lola
DeLongoria, Lauri Hunter, Mary Alice Bastian, Chris Francis,
Miriam Littlejohn, Claire Mc Carthy, Barbara McNulty, Reva Basch,
Claire McPherson, Edith Tucker, Jackie Morse, and Ruth Hayflick. We would also like to
recognize the extra support and help provided by the Monday #1
weekly quilting group who pitched in and helped assemble, sew and
quilt many of the booth items, assemble kits, attach price tags
and generally keep the chairperson sane. We could not have done this
without everyone's help.
Thank
you for supporting your quilting guild!
Library
Corner
After a
quiet summer, you will be seeing some interesting additions to
our guild library at the Art Center. Don Buck generously gave us
the books from Doris's library, and we have received other
donations as well. Also new to the library is the PBS Video,
"A Century of Quilts", featuring close-up views of
beautiful examples of various quilting styles and brief
interviews with well-known contemporary quilters. It is
definitely worth watching.
At the next
meeting I will again offer a silent auction. The books will be on
display at coffee time and the bidding will close 15 minutes
after the program. This is a great way to add to your personal
collection from these duplicate or older publications, and the
proceeds will buy us more books. I would welcome your donations
for either library or the auction. Also there will be magazines
free for the taking.
Ann Graf, Librarian
But Is It Art?
The
question was settled long ago for most quilt lovers here on the
Coast (not to mention for many of the 20 million or so quilters
in the U.S.), but it seems the debate still rages over the old
quilts-as-art-vs.-craft conundrum.
A recent
article in the Wall Street Journal (“Museums Cozy Up to
Quilts” by Brooks Barnes, August 23, 2002,) points out that,
while many big-city museums are mounting admittedly very popular
shows that feature quilts, some museum-goers “are surprised
to see the usual fare replaced by beaux-arts blankies: This
stuff’s not art, they say, it’s crafts.”
Barnes
quotes Nancy Druckman, director of Sotheby’s folk-art
department: “They’re
highly refined objects that often address important historical
themes,” she says. But
the general tone of Barnes’ piece is not quite so positive,
and if you’re looking to see quilting generally recognized
as an art form you may have to wait until a few prejudices are
overcome.
Apparently
the feeling among some critics in the museum and art worlds is
that the reason for the current “quilt craze” is that
the shows are “cheap to mount.
And museums need that, especially at a time when attendance is
falling, outside funding is drying up, and insurance costs are
soaring.” Insurance for
quilt exhibits is very inexpensive compared to traditional shows,
and shipping is cheaper, too.
“No
more quilts!” begs Jonathan Glus, director of public-art
projects in Pasadena, adding that museums that make a big deal
out of showing quilts are “essentially lazy.” Josephine Gear, professor of
museum studies at NYU agrees: “Just
because something is popular doesn’t mean it belongs in a
museum.”
Might make
for an interesting topic of debate/discussion at your next weekly
Quilt Group meeting!
Member
Notices
Judith
Jones’
show opens at the Sea Ranch Lodge, Thursday, September 5, 5-7
p.m. The theme is Kimonos
and the show will run for the entire month.
“Provence
on Your Plate” is a tour being organized locally by Cynthia
Chilton, for May 31- June 12, 2003. The contact is Connie Wilson,
800-449-2111 or connie@provenceonyourplate.com. The trip will
start in Strasbourg and end in Aix. Call
Cynthia, 785-1943 with questions.
A new
weekly Quilt Group is in the planning stages. An organizational meeting
will be held in October if there is enough interest. Call Carol Tackett,
785-1024, or Marilyn Limbaugh, 785-3814, for more
information. Carol &
Marilyn are considering making this an evening group so quilters
who work during the day can be included.
Anita Kaplan has
received two ribbons for her quilts in the Marin County Quilt
Show. Her quilt "Liaisons" took third place, and
"Coney Island Abalone" took first place in the small
(less than 145" perimeter) innovative category. She also
received a second place ribbon in the Art-in-the-Redwoods
Festival for the quilt "And What is Life?" This month also marks the
publication of an article about Anita in Quilt Magazine, Fall
2002, showcasing her quilts.
President’s
Note
by
Paula Osborne
It was
1972. I lived in the
Colorado Rockies, was expecting my second child, and my home
needed a quilt. After making a coverlet of Dresden Plate cheater
cloth, I yearned for real patchwork.
After all, the ‘70’s were back-to-nature,
cabin-in-the-woods, bake-your-own-bread, make-your-own-quilt
time, and I was living it. Without pattern or instructions but
armed with calicos and solids in primary colors, mostly cotton, I
cut them into squares using a crooked cardboard template, sewed
them into strips, and sewed the strips together, sitting on the floor, my machine on the
coffee table. My corners did
not match. I knew I had
missed the mark, but did not hide my colorful quilt, vowing
simply not to make another until I had the proper tools.
By the
‘90’s, quilt stores, wonderful fabrics, measuring and
cutting tools, books and instruction were widely available, and I
had time. Gayle
Stewart’s Beginning Piecing class helped me fulfill my vow.
Without such a class I would still be missing the mark, yearning
to create a quilt that would please me, and perhaps others.
Thanks to all of you, I now have enough inspiration, instruction,
and quilts to admire (yours!) to last another 30 years.
Where is
that first quilt, you may ask? My
son, who has lived with it all his life, says it is beyond
repair, but serves as his mattress pad.
Stay tuned
for a Beginning Piecing class being organized currently, to begin
later this month. See
details in the article on page 1 of this newsletter.