In a book 1

Earlier this year SAQA put out a call for people to submit images of their greatest quilts from each of the last five decades for a book project.  As I recall the rules, you could only submit one quilt per decade.  When the call came out I thought about it and realized I don't have good images from farther back than the last eight or ten years.  Before that I have slides, which I had digitized but have been disappointed in the quality, or early digital photos with not enough pixels for decent reproduction.

In my memory, I decided to hell with it, wasn't worth entering.

But the other night as we went into a party my friend Marti said to me "You are famous!!  You got accepted into the SAQA book!!  It was in the SAQA email blast this afternoon."

I was mystified.  I told her "I didn't even enter," but apparently I did, because when I got home and checked the email, yes, there was my name in the list of 240+ quiltmakers who were accepted.  The announcement said, "After careful review of hundreds of quilt artists working all over the world, final selections have been made for Art Quilt Retrospective, the book organized by SAQA celebrating this art form's development over the past 50 years."

Then it said, "SAQA will be contacting the participating artists individually via email during the coming month to determine which image(s) will be published.  Please do not contact SAQA at this time about the book."

So I'm in a mysterious limbo. What did I submit? What was accepted?  I can't find any record of my submission -- usually I make a folder on my computer for any new show entry, and put the images and paperwork there, but maybe I entered online through the SAQA website and neglected to keep a record.

Half of me feels elation to be in such great company -- all the great names in art quilting (sadly, many of them have died), so many people whose work I have admired for decades, so many people whom I call friends today.  But half of me feels embarrassment at not remembering how I responded to the call.  Wait -- maybe somebody else nominated me, just as somebody else must have chosen those dead artists.

I hope I (or somebody else) nominated Memorial Day, probably my most memorable quilt.

Memorial Day, 2008 (detail)

I'll let you know when I find out something.