Quilt National -- the rules

Quilt National '15

In the last couple of days the rules for Quilt National '17 have appeared on their website, and I checked to see what if anything had changed since last time around.

First, the good news: the ban on any kind of color correction or other photo enhancement has disappeared.  Personally I never thought about this rule, since I didn't know how to do photo enhancement until quite recently and my regular photographer, George Plager, does such a good job that the photos always look like the quilts.  But some of my friends who are serious photo wonks will be happy to see this rule change.

And I think the notorious virginity rule has been greatly modified!  You may recall that in past QNs it has been verboten for a quilt to have appeared anywhere on the internet except for the artist's own website (or presumably, blog).  That means if you put your quilt on Facebook or Pinterest, or if somebody grabbed the image from your website and posted it on their own blog or site, it couldn't be in QN.  As a result, serious quilters have become paranoid about showing photos of anything they thought might possibly turn into a QN entry.

But a close reading of the new rules finds no mention of the internet!!  They still require print and show virginity -- no appearance in "an American publication that has national or international distribution; this restriction includes SAQA publications" or in "an International or American fiber arts exhibition" before the QN opening next May.  If I'm reading it right, I think this is an excellent change, getting rid of an overly strict and punitive rule.

Now the bad news: first, the deadline is earlier than it has been in the past -- September 1 compared to mid-September in all the years I recall.  I know QN needs a long lead time because of its practice of re-photographing all the quilts for its beautiful catalog, but this change doesn't affect the lead time; the notification will occur on October 6, compared to October 7 last time around.  All it does is give the jurors two more weeks to do their work.

Next, the age limit on entries has apparently been cut in half (full disclosure: I don't have a copy of previous years' rules to compare with the new ones, but I have spent enough time angsting over QN entries that I'm pretty sure I remember correctly).  Quilts must have been finished since September 1, 2015 -- in other words, less than one year old.  If I'm not mistaken, it always used to be two years.

So if you got cracking immediately after the entry deadline for the last QN, and made a great quilt last spring or summer, it's not eligible for this QN.  Which seems kind of silly -- it wasn't eligible for the last QN, and not eligible for this one either?  Strikes me that this rule will only encourage people to fib about when they finished their quilts.  (One reason why I never sew the sleeves on quilts until they're on their way to a show -- I can testify honestly in court that I just finished the quilt last week!!)  I think that in the eternal quest for NEW WORK they've gone too far with this rule.

And another piece of news that annoys me is that the entry cost has gone up.  Well, actually I'm not upset that the cost has gone up, but because of the way they chose to announce it.  In fact, as I look back in my checkbook I see that QN's cost has been on the low side ever since I have been entering  -- $25 in 2002 and 2004, $35 from 2006 to 2012, then up to $45 last time around.  Compared to $75 at Visions, QN has been a bargain.

But get this -- this year it's "entry fee of $45.00 plus a $10.00 processing fee."  Why this elaborate description?  Do they think we won't notice the extra ten bucks?  Is it so they can testify in court that the entry fee didn't go up?  Be honest, folks -- I don't think we'll begrudge you the money, but I do begrudge the obfuscation.

Sunday funnies 14

All the news that's unfit to print 1

As a former newspaper journalist, I really get annoyed when newspapers print stupid, worthless things to help the American public become even more ignorant.  So I've decided to start calling them out in public.

Even worse than printing stupid, worthless stuff is printing stuff that is downright wrong.  For instance, in yesterday's paper:

In an age when only 65 percent of the American public can name even one of the three branches of our government, and 10 percent think that Judge Judy serves on the Supreme Court, do we really believe that 62 percent understand (does that mean "know"?) what Cinco de Mayo celebrates?

Well, maybe if the question was posed this way 62 percent could answer correctly:

What does Cinco de Mayo celebrate?

A.  Mexico's victory over the French in 1862.

B.  The birth of Jesus.

C.  The signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776.

D.  The first meeting of the parliament of Iceland in 930.

(And how interesting that they chose to illustrate a historical holiday with pictures of drinks.)

Art Quilt Elements 5 -- raw edges

Two of my favorite quilts from AQE are similar in three ways: first, they're somewhat representational in nature (although not realistic); second, they're made mostly in raw-edge applique; and third, they're by artists whose work I have been following and loving for a while.

Dinah Sargeant, Spirit Dogs Greet the Ghosts (detail below)

I first saw Sargeant's work in Quilt National many years ago, back when I was pretty hung up on fine craftsmanship and meticulous piecing, and remember that I was amazed and impressed by the power of her loose, painterly style.  I wasn't sure what was going on in the picture except that it seemed to be guys floating around in spacesuits, and it was magical.  She's not a regular on the quilt show circuit, at least the shows that I keep track of, but her work shows up occasionally and is always wonderful.

This quilt, the largest in the show at 58 x 128", suffered from patchy lighting, but nevertheless has great presence, with mysterious figures of humans and dogs emerging from pink and blue clouds. Some of the imagery is painted; some is appliqued.  In places the stitching is dense; in others it's sparse.  I wanted to spend more time reading this piece and admiring Sargeant's vision.

Lorie McCown, Twins (detail below)

You might think that the conceit of using clothing shapes to represent people would be too cute by half, but McCown somehow imbues her dresses (and in this quilt, coveralls too) with some seriousness.  Hand stitching makes the stylized heads of the twins and a web of lines emanating from one's heart, and records many of the comments that twins have undoubtedly heard thousands of times: "do you finish each other's sentences?" "are you two twins?"  The outer border of vintage patchwork (or perhaps it just looks like vintage) adds a nice down-home touch.

Art Quilt Elements 4 -- maps

I took a break from my reporting on Art Quilt Elements, the show at the Wayne Art Center in Philadelphia, but last week I was out and about and was confronted in person by a faithful blog reader who demanded that I get back to unfinished business and show something besides pieced quilts!  I will do my best, although as I reviewed my images I realize that I did a lousy job of documenting the show.  We arrived late, thanks to a transportation mishap, then too busy talking with people instead of practicing photojournalism, and then my camera ran out of juice as I was making one last pass around the room to get photos.  So if you need more info you'll have to buy the catalog.  You can also see the quilts here; the images are small but the color is excellent.

But today, here are two quilts that were complementary of each other, both of them maps with a body of water as the focal point.

Alicia Merrett, Port at Dusk Diptych (detail below)

My camera being crabby; imagine that the purple background in the detail shot is the same lovely blue as in the full view.  But the show shows the interesting mix of piecing and applique, both raw edge and turned-under.

I've always had a thing for maps, both real and artistic.  Last week while I was visiting a friend I had the chance to look at not one but two books about maps made by artists, and was reminded of the vast range of approaches that can be used and still clearly be mapmaking.

Ayn Hanna, LineScape  #31 (Pelican Lakes) (detail below)

I believe this gorgeous quilt has no machine piecing, just applique and reverse applique, plus paint and hand stitching and a wide range of fabrics.  It's rich in texture (by contrast to the much flatter effect in Merrett's quilt) and more subdued in palette.

I admit that my eye is usually drawn first to the machine piecing, since that's my personal style, but more and more I admire hand stitching and enjoy seeing the ways it is integrated with machine stitching.  For instance, check out the long horizontal gray embroidery threads in the detail shot above.  They were laid down in long lines, interrupted by some fancy counted-thread work that made little crosses, then stitched over with machine quilting, which held the threads somewhat in place.  A surprisingly complex effect that rewards close viewing.

Poster child!

What a nice surprise -- I'm the poster child (oops, I mean the postcard child) for the SDA exhibit at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn NY.

In case you can't read the tiny type, this is my set of knotted sculptures called "Unspooled."