Moving into September...

Lots to see -- and do -- in Western Canada and beyond!

Let's start in Manitoba, where member Valerie Wilson has  just launched her first Online Workshop: "Facial Expressions -- Portraits in Fabric".

To get this project underway, she reported on her blog last week that she "[is] looking for people to be part of her Workshop Launch Team" folks who'll participate but be rather like tech editors for yarn patterns or proof-readers and sample stitchers for embroidery designers -- providing feedback so she can edit and "fine tune the content".  If you're interested in this Workshop -- whether as part of the Launch Team or as a future student, you can find more information HERE.

Moving west to Alberta...

There are five -- count 'em! -- opportunities to enjoy textile art all through September, courtesy of the Fibre Art Network (FAN), the Calgary-based textile art group, Spectra; a touring SAQA Trunk Show; and an exhibit by the Sheep Creek Weavers.  For details -- dates and locations -- see the poster below, sent to us by Marie McEachern.  Thanks, Marie!

Several SAQA WC members are participants in the FAN exhibits.  "Conversations" includes work by Katie Stein Sather, Karlie Norris McChesney, Janet Bednarczyk, Cathie Ugrin, Jaynie Himsl, Susan Selby, Joyce Brown, Marie McEachern, Linda MacKay, Terry Aske, Diana Bartelings, Victoria Gray, Janet Scruggs, Judy Leslie, Robin Fischer, Mary Wilton, Karen Johnson, Janis (Jan) Clark, Linda Ingham and Bonita (Bonnie) Rozander.

"From a Tiny Seed" includes several of the above-mentioned members, plus Donna-Fay Digance, Shel Hein, Pippa Moore, Judi MacLeod, Theresa Shaw, Paulette Cornish, Karen Cummings, Dianne Firth, Terry Rammell and Sandra Lounsbury.

Well done, everyone!


The SAQA Trunk you'll see is only one of eight trunks that were created in 2017 and have been touring ever since.  Each trunk contains 57 or 58 pieces (459 were submitted and divided up); each piece is mounted on a 12" x 9" backing board and encased in an envelope, on the back of which is information about the artist that created the piece.

Alas, not knowing which trunk will be on exhibit in Alberta, I can't tell you who the artists are -- or if any of our WC members' work is in it -- but I can tell you that if you've never seen one of these Trunks before, it's a fun, interesting and unique experience -- as Jennie reported in her August Regional Newsletter, referring to her visit with the Trunk to the Chilliwack Piecemaker's Guild meeting in June.

What of news from British Columbia?  Congratulations are in order for member Karen Johnson, who has had five (count 'em, too!) pieces accepted into the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Arts Festival to be held in Everett, WA, October 12-14, 2018.

She very graciously included photos of each piece in her e-mail to me with this news, so if you cannot manage to get to the event, you can enjoy them here:

Grid Play #4

Variations on a Grid

Variations on a Grid #2 - Paper

Streamside Stillness*

Circling the Blues**

Karen added the following notes:
* Streamside Stillness was awarded 3rd Place in the Abstract category at CQA;
** Circling the Blues was entered into CQA, but not accepted.

BRAVO, Karen!!

Finally, what about beyond our Region's borders?

SAQA's Annual Benefit Auction begins online two weeks from today!  Are you ready for the fun of watching the bidding?  Do you have your eye on one or two pieces -- perhaps by one of your favourite artists?  Did you create a Dream Collection to share with our international members...or maybe even just in your own mind?

The curating of a Dream Collection is, for me, one of the most fun aspects of the annual Auction, because it's affordable, and I don't have to find wall space in my tiny home for all the pieces I'd love to collect!  😉  This year my Dream Collection is entitled "Pet Project" -- and you can see it -- and all the others posted thus far -- HERE.

***   ***   ***  ***   ***

This weekend marks Labour Day which, for some, marks the end of summer for another year.  For others -- dare I say, for many? -- it's always thought of as the start of a new year, in that it is for those who have children going back to school.   The end of this school year (June 2019) will mark 50 years since I graduated high school, and 45 since I graduated university.  Although I'm gob-smacked by how that happened so quickly, I'm still looking forward to "going back to school" -- creatively, of course. 

To this end, I've enrolled in the SAQA Seminar series for the third year in a row, and am excited about all I can learn, all I can add to my creative tool-box, with these wonderful online (view any time) sessions.

I hope I'll encounter some of you in the live sessions -- and I look forward to where our collective creative journey takes us in this next year. 

Happy Labour Day, everyone!

August Update -- Part III: Lots to see in B.C.!

Who'dda thunk it?!  August is steam-rolling ahead to the end of it's tenure for 2018 -- and soon it will be September.  In some places, it's already "back to school". 

Sigh.  When did that happen?!

Happily, art lovers still have some "lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer" to enjoy perusing exhibits and galleries.

Included in what's ON this coming weekend (August 24-26) is THIS:

B.C. member Terry Aske highlighted this in a recent blog post (for those of you who don't -- yet -- follow her), as it is showing in the same location as the VMQG (Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild) exhibit was shown in 2016.

And two of Terry's quilts will be on display:

Sailing at Sunset
(c) 2018 - Terry Aske

and

Shades of Grey
(c) 2013 - Terry Aske

Meanwhile, another SAQA WC member from B.C., Karen Cummings, reports:

I have been invited to showcase my textile work at the Okanagan Art Gallery, Osoyoos, British Columbia -- a co-op art gallery featuring the work of 25 artists.

My plan is to change the work out every two months, creating an email invitation to each new showing. I am currently working on three large pieces featuring the hand printed fabric I like to work with.

 Here's Karen, posing with some of her lovely work at the OAG!

So...if you'd like to spend the last lingering weeks of Summer...(or even if you'd just like to get out of the smoke from the tragic wildfires all over the province)...take some time to introduce beauty into your life with one or both of these exhibits!

August Update - Part II: Lorraine Roy in B.C.!

On Thursday evening, September 13, the B.C. SAQA  POD is hosting an Artist's Lecture with textile artist Lorraine Roy of Ontario.

The opportunity to hear her speak about her arose because her exhibit, Woven Woods: A Journey Through the Forest Floor, is on show at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, UBC, Vancouver, through November 4, 2018.  In fact, the creation of this exhibit will be the focus of Lorraine's talk.

Light refreshments will be served, and there will be an opportunity for Q&A following the lecture.

Here are the details you need to know to attend:

Date: Thursday, September 13, 2018

Time: 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Place: VanDusen Botanical Garden

5251 Oak Street, 

Vancouver, B.C. V6M 4H1

Admission: $15.00 per person

Tickets available online at www.picatic.com

Sponsored by the SAQA WC B.C. POD, this event is open to all SAQA WC members, throughout the Region.  It is also open to the public, so do invite your art-loving friends and family to join you for what is sure to be a unique look into the creation of an art exhibition -- from inspiration and inception to fruition and exhibition.

Need more information?  Contact B.C. Rep Jennie Johnston by e-mail or visit the Facebook Event page.

Lorraine with her exhibit, Woven Woods: A Journey Through the Forest Floor

August Update - Part I

First, many thanks to Bethany Garner, former SAQA Central Canada Co-Rep, who visited the My Corner of the World: Canada exhibit now showing at the Mississippi Textile Museum in Almonte, ON, and took wonderful photos of the pieces in situ.

In an e-mail to the participating artists, Bethany described the set-up of the exhibit thus:

[I] Had a nice visit at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte with fibre friends on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed seeing your beautiful SAQA My Corner of the World Canada quilts hanging throughout the Museum. The artwork is in a number of various areas through the Museum, as the big PUPPET exhibit is in the main gallery on the first floor. There were not enough of the SAQA quilts to fill the big Gallery, but honestly, I love the juxtaposition of the quilts in areas where the visitors walk and stop to talk, along the stairwells, front lobby, near the gift shop entrance and they are spectacular in the big upper floor gallery, scattered along the walls as the visitors visit the "Fabric of a Small Town" exhibit that is permanent now in the mill after several years of restorations just completed and celebrates the history of the MILL - and why so many visit the Mill Museum so beautifully restored by volunteers for the Almonte Community. We are blessed to have the quilts in this beautiful summer location during tourist season for sure.

Many of the quilts are in small groups, and as you can understand, in an old Mill with scared stone and plaster walls, the hanging options are few. I simply loved the way the art quilts worked to draw the viewers, hanging proudly along the walls among the Mill equipment, the stacks of wooden trays for sorting bobbins and small tools of the trade and the looms and carding equipment - samples of the actual cloth making. So appropriate to our story. I did capture all of your quilts on the cell phone, and will get better photos next visit!

...Your quilts have survived their travels to England, France, Italy and Poland over the past two years very nicely... and they look beautiful in their setting. It was a rainy day, but I had a chance to get a few good cell phone photos which I have posted at the SAQA Central Canada Blog... they are random and apologies to Janet, as her photo is a bit dark - but the quilt which is mainly made of woven strips of paper maps and sheers hangs tall and beautiful between two great windows in the Gallery - so do visit and see "White Pine: Titan of the Shield" for yourself in all of it's glory. There are catalogs of the exhibit available in the Museum Gift Shop, and they were in the hands of several of the visitors - so SAQA is getting the recognition and interest we hoped for! Each quilt tells YOUR story and is an amazing celebration of what Canada represented for you as you worked to tell your own story.

She posted her photos on the SAQA Central Canada blog, so you can see them HERE.

Jaynie Himsl's Poplar Point
at the entrance to MCOTW: Canada
in the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum

Next, there's an exhibit on NOW at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary, Alberta.  Entitled Abstraction, it's presented by the Calgary-based art quilt group "Spectra" and includes the work of these SAQA WC members, and friends: Ilse Anysas Salkauskas, Joyce Brown, Diane Duncan, Margaret Jessop,  Marie McEachern, Beverly Patkau and Linda Van Gastel -- pictured below with colleagues at the recent Opening Reception:

Left to right: Nan Williams, Beverly Patkau,
Margaret Jessop, Joyce Brown, an unidentified colleague,
Linda Van Gastel, another unidentified colleague,
Marie McEachern, Ilse Anysas Salkauskas, and Diane Duncan.

The piece featured on the Jubilee's 'Gallery' web page is this one:

A Game of Life
(c) 2018 - Ilse Anysas Salkauskas

I understand there are other artists in the exhibit who aren't in the photo from the reception, and have asked Marie to send me more information -- and photos of the other work!  😊

While the Jubilee web page doesn't indicate how long the show is up, for those in the area who may want to view it, please note the following about Gallery hours at that venue:

The Jubilee Gallery is open during pre-show and intermission during Jubilee performances. Additional viewing hours are Monday to Friday from 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM.