Quilt Visions 2014 - Opening

Last night was the opening reception for Quilt Visions 2014, "The Sky's The Limit", at Visions Art Museum in San Diego.  This is always such an exciting event with many of the artists in attendance (24 out of 40 this year) along with the staff and most of the volunteers for the Museum.  It is always over too quickly and I want to gather all these people back again for more discussion and visiting.  These pictures were taken at events that happened today - a breakfast for the artists, a walk through with the artists talking about their quilts, a panel discussion about the process of jurying for Quilt Visions and Quilt National. 

 

 The Museum is not large and was very crowded, as you can see.  This is the reception area and gift shop with the Alcove Gallery on the left.  The artists with quilts hanging there are telling this squashed together crowd about their work.

These are the artists gathered for a picture.  I cannot identify each one, but will do so and run this picture again soon.  The quilt on the wall behind them is Emily Richardson's "Swiftly" which received the President's Award selected by the President of the Museum Board of Directors, Andrea Bacal.

 

A few of the artists didn't fit in one frame! On the wall to the left is "Points In Time" by Vicki Carlson of Fort Collins, CO.

 

Charlotte Bird is the chair of the exhibit and has managed, I believe, four of the previous Quilt Visions exhibits.  She is the person who puts all the pieces together and we all need to say "Thanks for a job well done."

Janet Steadman (Langley, WA) on the left is a long-time quilt maker whom I had not met previously,  yet one of her quilts has been in TCQC since 2000.   Friend, Visions volunteer and fellow artist Judy Warren-Tippets is on the right.  On the wall between them is Marianne Burr's (Coupeville, WA) "Eleven 3 Eleven" which won the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Recognition Award.  On the left above Janet's shoulder is Elizabeth Busch's (Glenburn, Maine) "Summer Walk". 

 

 

Mariam Machell is shown with the quilt that received the Mariam Machell Award for Beauty.  Mariam is one of the founding members of Quilt Visions.  The quilt selected by her friends at the Museum is "Ryu, Gwan-Sun by Shin-hee Chin of McPherson, Kansas.



Britt Friedman quilt in Collection 01-01-12

The image of this quilt and the original text was on my Blog 11-16-08.

This is the first quilt I purchased from a Visions exhibit. I thought it was wonderful from the first moment I looked at it - and I still do. It seems to be the very essence of cold, icy winter trees.  It happened that Britt was at the Visions opening in 2002, so we were able to meet and I took her picture with her quilt. She lives in Oberlin, Ohio, and has not made the trip to Oceanside in subsequent years.  I purchased another of her quilts at Visions 2008.

In 2002 there were not very many quilt makers using photos on fabric, so to me this seemed very different. I was at the gallery one day, admiring this newest addition to the Collection, when two older ladies came through and found flaws in every quilt. They seemed to like this one until they got really close; one leaned in for a two-inch view and declaimed, "Why that is just a photograph. That's cheating." I swallowed my laughter and drifted away, but I'm sure they found something wrong with every quilt in the gallery. Funny how some people 'enjoy' an exhibit, isn't it?

"Winter Tree"  Britt Friedman 2002 27"W x 34.5"L

Photo printed on fabric, machine pieced and quilted.

 Britt Friedman - November 2002

I don't find a website for Britt, but if you Google her name + quilts there are a number of references. 

By-the-Way..... 02-26-11

Would anyone like a postcard from the Visions 2010 exhibit with Velda Newman's quilt on it?  I picked up a handful last time I was there thinking that they are so lovely someone who couldn't get to the museum would enjoy having a cheerful image to pin on their wall.  If you don't have my e-mail address check on my profile.   Send your snail mail address w/Zip, please.


This is how the quilt looks in the gallery.

Quilt from Visions Challenge 07-18-10

People get confused about Visions, not realizing that there are three parts that compliment each other and offer several windows into contemporary quilts/art quilts. There is the biennial International Quilt Visions exhibit, juried from hundreds of submission from around the world. Quilt Visions - 2010 will open in October at the Oceanside (California) Museum of Art for a four month run. There is the Visions Art Quilt Gallery in San Diego which has changing exhibits about every three months. And there is the volunteer organization Visions which offers the members opportunities to exhibit their quilts at the gallery and encourages this by sponsoring challenges for the members. Even if you live a great distance from San Diego, you can help support the work of promoting art quilts by being a Visions member and you can participate in the challenges. http://www.quiltvisions.org/

"Fantasy Flowers I" Julia Zgliniec - Poway, CA 12" square

I was fortunate to visit the Gallery soon after the "Fantasy Flowers" challenge quilts were hung in the foyer, so I had almost first pick of these inventive works. When I chose this one I didn't know who the maker was, so I was delighted and surprised to learn it was made by Julia, a friend of some years and the appraiser I use for the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection and for my own quilts.

Combining the colorfully dotted Australian fabric with the 'bubble' quilting in black thread gives this work both depth and motion.

Julia has backed the quilt with the same fabric and added a computer printed label giving all of her information.