Greetings from Montevideo, from Alison Schwabe, Aussie quiltmaker

In our wanderings last weekend we went in and out of the many antique shops on Av. Tristan Navaja, as usual finding many beautiful things to oooh and aaaah at. Montevideo is an antique collector's paradise. It's a shame that we don't have the money or the housing space to buy some of the most appealing things, however DH and I both enjoy wandering and spotting outstanding pieces, and occasionally go to one of the local auctions. They say a thing beauty is a joy for ever, and here is a case in point . Now if I were to buy this I would somehow feel that I needed to put it to some purpose. And although the tally is not necessarily final, currently all our grandchildren are all well past this stage. So perhaps it could serve holding a large tub of maiden hair fern .... but any carelessness with the watering could damage the cane base. The same concerns arise using the pram as a very elegant, indeed capacious, drinks trolley, as condensation on the ice bucket would play havoc with the base in no time. It could be a perfect display unit for a doll collection if that were my thing .... fabric stash mobility in my work area might be improved, that's one idea .... anyway feel free to make your suggestions.

Labels: antique, craftsmanship

We woke to a beautiful morning early in Carrasco, then the fog came in, but it seemed to hold promise of a lovely day so with a couple of things on the list to look out for, we headed off downtown to Av. Tristan Navaja, where every sunday rain hail or shine, a ferria, market, takes place. Now in addition to all the produce you can think of, and household goods, you can buy anything from a tap washer to a any kind of battery, pirated and genuine cds and videos, lots of interesing industrial waste/cast off stuff, some antiques, some vintage stuff and plenty of junk. Lots of clothing, shoes and accessories, new, used, and some very old, vintage stuff. Quite a few quite nice fur coats were on offer today.... Down the years we have bought a number of beautiful glasses in 'sets' of anything from 1 to5, and I think I have mentioned the several stalls I keep my eye on that stock old needleworked household linens. But there's one thing I just have not come to yet, and that is selecting and purchasing my bras and knickers from one of the many street vendors.... only some of whom are women.

Our eyes locked onto this home-made Penny-Farthing 

.... propped up by a bit of wood... 

Labels: antique, craftsmanship, recycling

....and certainly showing fine DIY ingenuity to keeping the tyre on... Penny- farthings usually had all-metal wheels anyway, so this has been adapted for additional comfort. 

Look carefully and you will realise this is a print of one of my quilts, "Afterglow" onto white fabric, which is then pinned to my cream pinboard. My dear son, bless him, has dreamed up yet another way to enhance my quilt designing and making career, and had this sample done... and despite any personal doubts on the wisdom, or indeed the marketability of this idea, I have so far have consulted two very leading art quilters, and found opposing views. I have yet to be convinced that anyone at all would be interested in buying a print of an art quilt to layer and quilt themselves, sort of like a contemporary art quilt cheater cloth.... Granted you could only do this for something you intended to keep in your own collection, right? ... so what do YOU think?

"made with reference to the kimono" ? Hmmmm, I am going to have to be more careful in these days of awareness of cultural symbolism.  

I am currently sorting some heaps of paperwork after returning from the US last week. It's urgent now, as for months before I went I had just been heaping stuff up out of the way without order, propped up to stop it sliding around. But now I want to start some new work with order and no clutter around me. I've found the book stuff, and lots of little bits and pieces relevant to it, and have filed them all together, but there's a ton of work to be done, so that's set aside for the moment.

One thing that came to the top last night was an Australian contemporary quilt exhibition review in which my piece, Fire Danger 2, shown above, was described as being made 'with reference to the kimono". Granted the shape might suggest a short sleeved, short-waisted jacket, but a kimono? I am very careful to avoid appropriation of cultural images from anywhere. My artist statements have never included any mention of Japan, the language, the culture or travel there, and I have never used any of the currently fashionable old and many-times-mended Japanese textiles in my work - IMHO inappropriate for most of us in the Western world, unless we are making some kind of culturally relevant statement.

So, I allowed a silly, vacuous statement to irritiate me a little. Feel free to comment!

Brown and cream shown at various stages of construction on this site, is pictured finshed, as Ebb and Flow 11. Finished for the exhibition with a couple of days to spare. In time there will be a better snap without the fold down the middle, which you might pick up in this once it's posted. 

Last saturday I spent on the beach at Ocean City MD - well on the island Assateague, a beautiful national park barrier island off the coast of MD. Lots of wild horses on the island the result of having been left there, source uncertain, years and years ago, Some are culled annually, the weak and very old, and healthy surplus animals are sold tothe public, to keep the population of them in healty balance. And of course facilities in a US national park are great, as usual. The water was freezing but I can now technically claim to have dipped into the N Atlantic up to my midriff. On the beach itself the temperature was in the high 80's, a warm breeze, the adults got a bit burnt but the little ones didn't, and it was beautiful. On monday I arrived in Uruguay where it has been raining these past few days, and it is cold. Really cold. This is a country which a month ago was debating how far and how harshly the neccessary power cuts would have to be imposed.... and now DH tells me the country is now exporting surplus electricity to Argentina. Floods are taking their toll in the usual places with the usual very poor victims.

For some time I have had a bunch of see-thru folders lined up to help organise newsletters, and boxes for the magazines, even an extra bookcase to be assembled. this work is now in progress as I mull over the next works I have in mind for looming deadlines, mostly for opportunities in Australian juried events. Also I am hoping to submit an entry into Visions, this year.

At last I have some time to put up a few pics to give all those not able to be present some idea of how it all looks and so on. I have to say how impressive the two people engaged by the embassy to hang the show were . Shelley works with the Phillips Collection and Marcus is a student as I recall. They did a terrific job and many people commented on how well it all looked. I engaged a photographer Peter Cutts, to take some overall gallery shots of the show when he does some high resolution shots of several of the quilts while they hang there, so there will be possibly one or more shots to put up when I receive his work. It's an exciting thing to see a whole lot of your work up in the one space, and extra nice to have had two chances to talk about it - firstly to the embassy staff on the afternoon of the opening, and then the following week to a group of interested quiltmakers who gathered in the gallery to get to some of the nuts and bolts stuff. I found it fascinating the questions they asked, and the interpretations a couple of them put on what I had done.

Little Me with son Ivan and DIL Tara, in front of their Wedding quilt, which is huge, very large king size. A truly modern scrap quilt, looks great on their four-poster.

Robin and Vince came a long way from, er, Uruguay/Europe/all over the USA/ just to get there on the night....and sounded as if they are en route to Hawaii...  

This piece, "Sunburnt Textures", as it turned out made a nice partial frame for the title wall of the show. In the background Ancient Expressions IX, one of only two of this series I have left, and further to the right is Kimberley 2, which one of the people on the floor talk insisted COULD be interpreted as dinosaur eggs .... good grief, the things people think of.

Shelley hard at work with, um, pondering something

This gives an idea of the lovely gallery space, with quilts laid out in the places we decided for them

Marcus, one of the guys organised to help set up the exhibition, checking the lights on "Desert Wind" 

It was terrific, if anything exceeding my expectations although I am not quite sure why I feel that - I do know that there are a lot of other quilt and fiber things on n various parts of the country around this time and I think drew several people away from this marvellous event. It kicked off with a beaut welcome dinner up at the Tragers' in Boulder and began what for me was a 3 day meeting of faces from the past and putting some new faces to names and images that have been impressing me. Not being a name dropper I won't be listing them here - well maybe I can let you know that Arturo Sandoval whooping up out of the crowd just as I was being photographed with my quilt ruined the snap ( eyes shut tight mouth wide open in surprise returning greeting) and it had to be re-shot, no problems with digital of course.

Thanks to good planning by the committee and generous help from an army of vollies, the whole event was well organised, from the beaut tote bags with bottles of water among the literature including health notes for the newly-arrived-at-altitude, to comprehensive schedules, maps, and shuttle buses. The initial collection of art quilts was unveiled looking wonderful - goodness some of those oldies are goodies, and the catalogue is in one word fabulous. Send for one to the RMQM - its great. Exhibiting artists got one free of course, but I bought a couple more. And there was so much catalogue signing we all quickly felt celebrities. The speakers were interesting, one or two droned on a bit - whose showing slides always err on the side of too many - and it was difficult to choose between excellent topics listed for the discussion panels. Ours on regional diversity was lively to say the least, and after what looked like a total divergence of approach came back to different aspects of the same thing.
And it was interesting to see several collectors present and attending sessions, meeting with artists and thereby outwardly demonstrating their support for the art area in which they are collecting. Several quilt magazine people were there, one actually sought me out to write some articles, which I will now that the exhibition that has been focusing my attention is up. I stayed with my friend Janet Jo Smith and had a wonderful opportunity to go through her hand dyed fabrics - she is one of my preferred dyers, the other being the well known Aussie Dijane Cevaal. Ooops - careless - just dropped a couple of names from the bundle I am carrying around in my brain just now.

Anyway it is now time to get dressed etc for the day - I fly out ack to BWI for toorow's floor talk at my exhibition. Packed last night, and triumphed over a 3m piece of batting managing to get it consolidated enough to fit in my travel carry on tote bag, with still enough room to slide a few things down in amogst the folds, magazine for plane etc.

Yesterday I went into the aus embassy for a few hours to join the professional hangers at work putting up my quilts, sorting out the final decisions of where to hang each piece, and deciding that one piece just did not fit well with all the others; and since I have not heard today I can only deduce that all is finished and in hand for the opening tomorow evening, wednesday 1st. i took some people at work shots and will take others and put them up for readers to see, and will give an account of how things went.

Before that I spent several days out in Ohio at Athens, where the Studio Art Quilters Association had their conference and the opening of Quit National 05 took place also. Many marvellous quilts, and this time only one or two I felt did not belong, and not too many that seem to be a rehash of previously exhibited works - but there are always a few - or maybe I am just missing something. It was terrific to meet with several people I have not seen in many years, and meet people whose work I have been admiring in catalogues and on line in that time. The conference program was absolutely full and in manyways useful.

So, tomorrow morning I repack, because after the Opening tomorrow I head out to Colorado for the Rooted in Tradition symposium at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, plus a few days of hanging out with family and friends there before returning to Maryland for the public floor talk at the embassy thursday 9th at noon, and then on the weekend I depart to return 'home' to Uruguay.