Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Regional Zoom Meeting Friday April 24

Please join your fellow Western Canada members this Friday, April 24th for a 2020 goals check in. We will chat about how living under these new restrictions has effected your art practice. Are you making masks? Are you being super productive? Are you struggling with your creativity?
We want to hear from you all and support each other through these challenging times.

Times are:
6:00 pm Eastern 
5:00 pm Central 
4:00 pm Mountain
3:00 pm Pacific  


The link to the meeting was sent out in the April Newsletter earlier this week.

Please contact Susan or Jennie for help or with questions.

Photo credit Maggie Vanderweit MoSAiQA Virtual Conference 2020

Saturday, April 18, 2020

SAQA Benefit Auction 2020

The time is now to create your 12 x 12 inch Benefit Auction Piece. This exciting auction takes place online from September 14 to October 4 in 2020.
Proceeds from this auction support SAQA's extensive exhibitions and educational programming.


Deadline to submit your piece is June 1st 2020.
For all the details on submitting visit this link.

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

The Making of Plastic Chowder


A Guest Post by Western Canada member Janet Scruggs
To learn more about Janet visit her website


                                                                                  
When I first heard about the Shifting Tides exhibit being comprised of artists from the western areas of the US and Canada, it piqued my interest. We share a lot of the same concerns on the western coast of North America. So this exhibit was an opportunity to speak about issues that might not enter the thoughts of those in other parts of the country.

Translating a concern or an issue into cloth can be challenging. How could I represent the tiny microplastics that have increased so much they are encircling everything and becoming food to organisms?


Plastic Chowder - Janet Scruggs

I decided a collage would be my best method of doing this. I was able to obtain permission to use text from a couple of news articles. These, and the photos were printed directly onto various fabrics. One of my favourites is the result of printing on a thrift store find - a cotton fabric that is like a corduroy but not fuzzy.  I really felt that a raw edge look to the collage would be representative of the look of the ocean and would reflect my current approach to art quilts. Next I created the thread lace to represent the encircling plastic that is spreading. I stitched this initially with two colours of thread and when completed, I found that it did not have enough depth, so I attacked it with markers randomly. My final endeavour was to add several clear beads in strings to represent the tiny micro-plastic bits which are broken down from the plastic.


Plastic Chowder detail - Janet Scruggs