House for an Art Lover Christmas Show

The House for An Art Lover is a Charles Rennie Macintosh designed building in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.  It has a lovely feeling at this time of year, a real warm, cosy atmosphere, which is just what we need on a cold, dark and damp December day in Scotland.

I have this piece in its Christmas exhibition (£100 in case anyone wants an original Christmas gift!).  There are lots of other lovely works too, including a piece by by Dad's art tutor, Elaine Woo MacGregor.  I think he now believes I might be a real artist now I have a piece in the same show as her!

The opening was Thursday evening and we had intended to go, although there were rumbles of protest from two of the little monsters as it was a 'mulled wine and mince pie' private view, which meant no crisps.  They rate private views based on the nibbles.  However, Thursday was an incredibly stormy day, with the school closing at 10.15 in the morning.  Most of the roads around here were blocked due to fallen trees and flooding, so we decided it probably wasn't the wisest thing to do.  Instead we had a candlelit dinner (for five) and the kids played with glowsticks in the hall as we had a power cut.  We were lucky as it lasted less than a day, enough to be fun for the children but not so long as to get very cold.

The Quilters’ Guild Library

Last Saturday I spent a really lovely day at the Quilters’ Guild Library in York, researching quilt blocks and their stories.  It is housed in a lovely room just off the exhibition hall, with a pleasant view of old brick buildings and roofs out of the window.

I was helped by Hugette, one of the fabulous and enthusiastic volunteers who enable the library and the museum to function.  I wish I lived closer so I could use the library more and help out by volunteering.  Unfortunately, five hours of travel to get there make it logistically impossible!

I stupidly forgot to bring squared paper and was trying to draw some of the blocks freehand.  It provided me with new respect for the authors of the pre-1980 quilt books I was looking at, as they had all drawn the blocks by hand, in the days before computers could do it for us.  Those were the days of true dedication!

Fun in Venice

Urs Fischer's Wax Man

It’s not all been hard work over the past few months.  For half term in October, I looked to see where we could get cheap flights to.  The choice was Milan or Berlin and we swithered as both sounded good.  Eventually, we plumped for Milan as it was further south and I fancied a bit of warmth for a few days and we took the kids to Venice for the first time.

Detail of Monica Bonvicini's 15 Steps to the Virgin

Friends thought we were mildly eccentric (a polite way of saying completely mad) to take the kids there, but it worked surprisingly well.  They weren’t as excited as we expected at going on the water buses, but they liked visiting the fish and vegetable markets and seeing the gondolas float past our living room window.  

The Saudi Arabian pavillion by Raja and Shadia Alem (and below)

However, much to our surprise, the highlight for all of us was visiting the Venice Biennale.  We all enjoyed it so much we spent two days going round the two main venues and managed to slip in some visits to other exhibitions too.  The kids took loads of photos, over 1,500 in the week, many of them of their feet.  

However, the cameras helped them engage with the art works and enabled them to spend time considering what was going on.  Particular favourite of us all were Urs Fischer’s giant candles of people.  These looked very spooky and the kids loved seeing ‘body parts’ lying on the floor.  They also enjoyed the Saudi Arabian exhibit, which I found beautifully thought provoking.  We were suitably grateful for the plasticine art work, which the kids spent ages playing with, giving me time to go and absorb the other pieces in the show.

Concentrating hard to take one of our 1500 photos!

Successes and Failures

So what’s been happening in my world recently?  Not much art work as I would like, but hopefully all that is going to change over the next week and as I am aiming to get back into producing and spending less time on proposals and trying to get my work out there.

I’ve lost track of the number of proposals I written in the last month or so, which is probably just as well as I still have not developed the completely thick skin required to deal with the rejections.  Rejections are an inevitable part of being an artist, so you would think it wouldn’t bother me, but they do.  The other week I had a spectacular five rejections in one week. 

Trying not to take it personally and looking at it dispassionately is obviously the right thing to do, but it is easier said than done!  The hardest bit is not knowing why you didn’t get the work/exhibition.  Were you the next person on the list or did they look at your proposal and laugh?  Some people are kind enough to give you feedback and so last week’s one rejection almost felt positive as it was due to me living too far away and the travel costs were prohibitive.  It was hearten to know that the proposal itself was fine.

So in the midst of the gloom and writing proposals about audiences and learning outcomes, it was delightful to know that two of my photos were accepted and on show at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, USA last week.  The theme was friendship and rather than suggest images of two kids looking happy, I sent photos of rocks, waves and castles, with a vague explanation of why they were appropriate to the theme.  I think this is the imaginative part of being an artist!  These two photos were the two that were accepted.

Features in October's Popular Patchwork

One of the strange things about writing for a living can be the time gap between writing and actually seeing your words in print.  I wrote the article about the Loch Lomond Quilt Show a few months back, but as Popular Patchwork had so many articles to publish, it is finally appearing now.  It's a quick tour around some of the personal highlights of the show, some of which I mentioned in a blog post in May.  Seeing my photos of these quilts in print is great as it reminds me of how good the show was and how much I still enjoy seeing these quilts. 

Also in this issue is a bit of fun from me.  Sally, the then editor, asked me to write an article about Humility Blocks.  These are deliberate errors made in quilts to show that the maker is no perfect.  This seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon, based on the mis-guided view that this is what quilters of old did.  Illustrating the piece was interesting as how do show humility blocks unless it is something you practice and have a big pile of quilts with deliberate errors in them?  So I opened up my trusty EQ7 software package again and made some designs to which I added deliberate errors.  As I didn't note them down at the time, I was a bit nervous when I opened the magazine and Mum and I tried to spot the error.  Some of them were harder than others and it took us a good 10 mins, but I did find them all in the end.  Can you spot the deliberate error in the quilt layout below?

In addition to my work, there is also a great article on the quilt collection of Cindy Rennels, which all have an American patriotic feel to them. 

Greek Thomson Art Event coming up

I've been a bit quiet on the blog front as I have been concentrating on trying to market my work rather than making, so there hasn't been much to tell.  I don't want to bore you all with the details until I have something exciting to share rather than all the slog of phoning/writing/attempting and not getting far!  I'm really looking forward to getting back into the studio and creating, but having neglected the marketing for years I really do need to give it a go.

As well as marketing, I have been busy planning our next community art event.  This will be the Balfron Big Draw on 22 October from 10-4 in the McLintock Hall.  We're theming it around the architect Alexander Greek Thomson who was born in Balfron.  His work is everywhere in Glasgow and he was responsible for the Greek revival in the 19th century, which influenced architects like Frank Lloyd Wright.  We have had great fun thinking up lots of different activities and I'm hoping I get a chance at them all as they all sound so great.

This drawing is one I made after visiting Holmwood House, designed by Greek Thomson and we are using it for our postcards advertising the event.

Holmwood House

On Saturday, after the boys and I had been to art class (the kids made shelters out of cardboard for the clay models they had made the previous week and I spent much of my time being Dr. Gillian carrying out emergency surgery and glueing the models back together!), we went to visit Holmwood House in the southside of Glasgow. R's brother and sister-in-law were here for the weekend and as none of us had been there before it seemed like a nice trip out. I also had an ulterior motive as our Big Draw event this year has a Greek Thomson theme and Holmwood is one of the few Greek Thomson designed buildings you can visit. It was an interesting journey as the sign posting was almost none existent, however it was worth the effort.

Holmwood was built as a home for a paper manufacturer and it was a nice size for a house: not so big as to be unimaginable to live in it, but still lots bigger than homes today. The National Trust for Scotland is carrying out extensive research and conservation on the interior and you could see glimpses of the original decoration and patterning, all designed by Greek Thomson as well as the actual building. Unfortunately, you couldn't take photos of the interior, but these are some shots of the exterior.

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The interior decoration featured lots of Greek style motifs and I'm sure we will be able to come up with some interesting ideas for the Big Draw. Personally, I found it all really inspiring and want to think about some of his designs for my own work, when I have time...!

Cupar Quilters

I had a really pleasant evening out at Cupar Quilters on Wednesday evening.  I was there to talk about my quilting and art career and they were a lovely group.  Even though it was a warm room, I didn't see anyone falling asleep - quite a feat as I know my eyes have a nasty habit of closing during talks, even when I am enjoying them and struggling hard to stay awake!  They were hugely appreciative of my quilts and the little stories that accompany them.  I was hugely appreciative of the group and they seem to be very active, with their exhibition coming up on 19 November and also a series of rainbow quilts which are going to be displayed at next year's Loch Lomond Quilt Show.  I hope the exhibition goes well and I will be looking out for the quilts at Loch Lomond next year.

I love meeting quilt groups and I always come away energised afterwards and intending to try harder to attend a group myself.  Life generally intervenes, along with the lack of baby-sitters, but who knows this time. 

Quilts Around the World

When I was researching the Irish Chain quilt pattern for an article for Popular Patchwork, I came across this book on google book search.  It was so enticing that I had to buy it.

Quilts Around the World by Spike Gillespie truly covers the world.  It has a long chapter on the States, various European countries, Asia and Africa.  It tells of quilting history of each country and sometimes touches on current practice.  It also has beautiful, enticing photographs and you can see the time that has been spent to create a lovely layout.

Each chapter or section is relatively short - bite-sized chunks of information.  Obviously in a book that touches on so many cultures, you are not going to get huge amounts of detail.  However, this makes it great for dipping into and it has filled in gaps in my knowledge of quilting in other countries. 

Spike has written much of the book herself, but has also used experts from certain countries to complement her own work.  For instance, Roselind Shaw has written a fascinating history of quilting in Northern Ireland. 

Frustratingly, the images do not always match the text.  They are gorgeous, but I would have liked to have seen more of the quilts mentioned in the text.  However, I understand that sometimes she may not have been able to get permission to use certain images.  And being parochial, it would have been good to have a paragraph on quilting in Scotland today, rather than just saying there isn't much quilt history here.  I think even if quilting is not in our blood, there is a very active and exciting quilt scene in Scotland now, with quilters such as Frieda Oxenham and Pat Archibald and grass roots shows springing up like the Loch Lomond one.

Overall , I'm really enjoying reading this book and I'm sure I will be flicking through it for many years to come.  I'd definitely recommend getting hold of a copy if you are interested in quilt history or quilts from other parts of the globe.

Continuing fame

I'm still trying to adjust back to normal life following all the hard work that I put into the Festival of Quilts.  It's strange to come back to reality and part of me does not want to: I'd rather be under pressure to create art work than deal with the cleaning, cooking etc! The little time I have available whilst our youngest is at nursery just seems to fly in and it appears as though no progress is being made.  Already I'm wondering how did I manage to make the time to create so much work this year.

However, some things are continuing on:  I was featured in the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald last week (it's pronounced Mill-guy) and Just Hands-On TV filmed me at the Festival and it will go out on their website sometime soon.  Being filmed was fun, although I'm not sure that I want to watch myself and hear just how Scottish I sound and being hyper-critical about whether I smiled enough.  It was lovely to meet Valerie and by strange coincidence she used to own the quilt shop besides Hampton Court where I always managed to visit on our regular trips to Hampton Court when we lived in London.  I still have some of the fabric in my stash which I purchased there.

At the Festival I also met Pam Holland, who did a short interview with me which may go out on The Quilt Show blog - fingers crossed it makes it through the editing process.  It was fun to meet her as I had admired and written about some of her work for Popular Patchwork.  The same piece which I had seen at Houston, won second prize at the Festival of Quilts.

I think this is one of the joys of the quilt world, making connections between people and quilts and the more I quilt, the smaller this world seems to become.