SAQA-The Maine Event 2012 dinner at the Capt. A.V. Nickels Inn, Searsport, Maine

What a lovely place to have an art quilt meeting!   I must say that this regional SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates, main site here) was the first time I’ve been around this many really top notch art quilters outside of the ginormous International Quilt Festival in Houston!  Thank you to coordinators Beth Berman, Sarah Carpenter and Margaret Sheehan for bringing this together for a third consecutive year.  I’ve already got the third weekend in September reserved for next year!

During the break after the last workshop/demo and supper, I sat outside on a breezy (and increasingly nippy) deck enjoying the view and sketching.

Earlier in the day I had spotted a beautiful old spoon amongst the assorted styles near the coffee.  I picked it up and decided it was so lovely that a mere photograph wasn’t enough, so I sketched it!  I then added a quick watercolor of that view (I believe that is the far north side of Penobscot Bay in the distance) and journaled a tiny bit on the page:

My sketch page of the day. The tiny writing that scrolls around reads: As the sun goes in and out behind the couds the shadows shift and move dancing over the page (upper line) and In the late afternoon we had a break after the last session and before dinner, so I painted the view. The spoon needs to be a bit darker at the tip of the bowl, but otherwise I’m happy with it.

After dinner was the best part…seeing what others are doing! Alas, I do NOT know everyone’s name, so I apologize to artists and readers alike for not having attribution on many of these.  If you know who did what, please let me know so I may update the blogpost!

Sandra Betts (on left) shared this portrait of her mother, using Mary Pal’s technique using cheesecloth. Very effective…. when Sandra first held it up I thought it looked like her, but not quite. When she said it was her mother that explained it!

Isn’t this FABULOUS? Someone please tell me who made it!

Michelle Goldsmith (on left) told us about taking Lisa Call’s working in a series online workshop. This was one of many large pieces, wholecloth and painted. I loved the joyousness of the color in this one. Plus it was fun to see Michelle again–she was program chair for her guild and they hired me to come teach there in May 2011, and it was so much fun!  I blogged about that visit here and here.

Beth Berman, our lead coordinator for this event, has a thing for crows. Her art quilting skills have just blossomed since I first met her. This is one of her two pieces.

This Maine quilter (on right) loves color and dyes her own fabrics and creates her own embroideries (in this case the seagulls). I just want to dive headfirst into that color!

As you might gather, it was a WONDERFUL day!  Thanks Beth, Margaret, Sarah and everyone who traveled from near and far.

This past weekend was the third annual SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) The Maine Event… a weekend of folks from upper New England and far eastern Canada. This past weekend was the third annual SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) The Maine Event… a weekend of folks from upper New England and far eastern Canada.  This year organizer Beth Berman chose the Capt. A.V. Nickels Inn, and boy do we want to return!  It is under new management, is gorgeous, has good food, and was a great place for a weekend workshop.  Folks arrived from hither and yon on Friday, had a reception Friday evening, then a full day of workshops led by various SAQA members Saturday, dinner for everyone Saturday evening at the Inn (a B&B), Show and tell, and another workshop on Sunday morning.

The Capt. A.V. Nickels Inn, just north of downtown Searsport on U.S. Route 1

This was the first year I got to stay for supper and sharing, and am so glad I did!  Since I live locally (about 35 minute away) I can’t rationalize staying at the inn or one of the nearby B&Bs or motels, but maybe next year I’ll go back for the Sunday session, too.

Sandra Betts from New Brunswick gave the first session on Free-motion Zendoodling–basically the same as with pen and paper (with which we began) but then done on the machine.  This is the same idea as how I noodle around with various fill patterns for free-motion.  I took photos of the doodling by various folks, but alas didn’t get names to go with sketchbooks.  If one of these is yours (or you know whose it is) let me know and I’ll attribution!  (PS–the (c) is just for the photo..the works in the photos are copyrighted by the artists.)

Zendoodle…she later filled the entire page

LOVE the house and antler-tree! I quilted some “antler coral” in the quilt that is on the cover of my book that looks just like her tree!

Michele O’Neil Kincaid (website here) gave the next segment on texture in quilts.

Michelle O’Neill Kincaid’s textured quilt (detail)

Next was Beth Berman’s turn, showing us her method for framing pieces using rigid foam insulation board and painted wood slats…nifty!

Then we had a break before supper and sharing.  I took some pictures:

The Inn was lovely…the first thing I saw as I entered is this sideboard…loved the candelabra!

Sweet creamer and sugar pot in the dining room

And the chandelier

The regular view

and a couple alternate views (that I much prefer):

Close up

And my favorite view, from underneath looking up at the ceiling

The internet is being hideously slow at our house today, so will stop here and will share the rest in a couple of days!

SAQA Auction 2012–Week 1. See below for more information and larger images.

The Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) annual major fundraiser, the auction, begins tomorrow morning!   The auction is in four phases this year!  As in previous years, for the next three weeks, a given set of 12 by 12 inch art quilts will be auctioned; the price is highest on the opening day, then goes down each day until the end of the week.  This year, there is a fourth part:  some of the quilts…including mine (GULP) will be live-auctioned at the International Quilt Festival.   The process will be similar:  the quilts will go on “sale” on Wednesday night at preview at the highest price, then will go down each morning and each afternoon in a set increment.  (And I’ll confess right here and now, I’m nervous and sure hope someone wants to buy mine!)

To see all of the quilts in this week’s auction visit the SAQA website here and here.   To find out more about bidding and details of how the auction works, go here.  SAQA has set up a way for folks who will not attend Festival can place absentee bids.  For information on that, please contact Martha Sielman, the Executive Director of SAQA via the contact page on the SAQA website or write to me for her email address (which I don’t want to put on the web and generate tons of spam for her!).

If I had unlimited funds, here’s where mine would go this week!

Happy Wolf by Nancy Erickson. Nancy’s style is instantly recognizable, and I always love her wolves, bears and people. This wolf is no exception! (Click on image to see larger.)

Nancy Ryan’s Madrona Tree calls to me with those incandescent leaves. Click on photo to see larger.

Sizing Up by Mary Pal. What Mary does with simple cheesecloth and stitch is stupendous. Click on photo to view larger.

It’s All Blue by Benedicte Caneill. Usually I’m not a fan of abstracts, but the vibrancy of the blues, the play of value from light to dark, and all her wonderful surface design make me love this quilt. Click on photo to view larger.

What would YOUR dream collection be?

PS–I almost forgot…here’s my contribution!

Conversations 3, by me (Sarah Ann Smith) will be in the IQA-Houston portion of the SAQA auction. This part of the auction-fundraiser begins on Sneak Preview night Wednesday, October 31!

Every year, Studio Art Quilt Associations (SAQA) has a fundraising auction of small works–all 12 by 12 inches– by some of the finest art quilters working today.  I’m thrilled to be able to donate this piece:

Conversations III

Inspired by a visit to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, I made a series of three quilts, a larger center panel flanked by two 12 x 12 inch quilts.  Conversations III was donated to the 2012 Studio Art Quilt Associates online auction fundraiser.

Detail from Conversations III

When I began this series, I thought first of the conversation my beloved Sister-in-law, her friend and I had at lunch, but then realized that there was a conversation between the architecture and the landscape, the sky and the stone in the buildings, the artists and the viewers, and in the case of these quilts:  between me and the cloth/dye/thread.  Yes, all of the fabric in these pieces began as white, and I dyed them.

Conversations I has been juried into A World of Beauty 2012, the judged show at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, and Conversations IIis now for sale. I am thrilled with how they turned out.  Quilted into the sky, and written in ink onto the table and chairs (for the shadowing on the wood) are words about the art and the conversation:  contrast, line, shape, form, sky, water, stone, shadow, sea breeze…..

Conversations I, II and III

Some of you  may recall seeing these three pieces when I blogged about them last summer (here and here) for The Frayed Edges show at the Camden Public Library.  The small quilt on the right is the one I have donated to the SAQA auction!  Learn more about the auction here, and see the quilts here.  I’ve just discovered that my quilt, Conversations 3, will be among those auctioned live (gulp, eek!) at the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  Thrillingly, Conversations 1 (the large central quilt) has just been juried in to the IQA World of Beauty contest.

The online auction is in three parts, starting September 10th.  Each week for three weeks, a group of quilts is auctioned.  On the first day, prices for the 12 by 12 inch quilts are $750.  The next day the price drops to $550, and so on down to $75 by the end of the week (tho not much is left by then!).  The risk is:  do you wait to get a lower price, or lose the quilt you really want?  Inevitably (sigh) the ones I want are gone in the first two days….  The auction in Houston will work similarly:  on Preview Night (Weds., Oct. 31) prices will be $750.  Thursday morning the price will drop, and again at 2 p.m.  And so on, through the end of Festival.  To buy one of the quilts at Houston, though, either you have to be there OR you need to have someone there to buy for you! I shall be nervous walking by the SAQA booth to see if mine has sold!  I wish SAQA all the best in fundraising!

Wow has time whoooshed by faster than the usual blindingly-fast disappearing that it usually does!  I’ve returned from a fun teaching trip to two guilds in Arkansas, a visit with an internet friend, gone to a 5-day dyeing silk workshop in Massachusetts, attempted to get caught up on paperwork (but not the accounting…UGH), and launch into Eli’s track season, his last sports season of Middle School… it is hard to believe in 5 weeks or so he will be a Freshman-at-the-end-of-summer!   So I guess I’ll start with the oldest news first:  Little Rock!

While heading out to lunch one day from class, one of my students pointed out a building across from the library (where the workshop was held) because she had a piece in the SAQA / Studio Art Quilt Associates regional exhibit!  On my day off between the two teaching jobs, I got to hang out with an internet friend whom I finally got to meet in the real.  Sherri D. took me to the exhibit and a few other places, so let’s  begin with the SAQA exhibit and Georgia’s  fabulous small piece!

Butterfly by Georgia Manning Lewis

She used many surface design techniques on the background and has been doing some wire-work for 3-D shaping.

The first piece I photographed in the exhibit is for my friend Kathy, who loves birds and makes wonderful bird quilts.  So Kath…here is an Arkansas wren for you:

Studio Wren by Sheri Marshall

I loved the stunning simplicity and calm of this piece:

Shamrocks by Ruth Ann Yax

I hadn’t realized that Arkansas is right next to Louisiana and, hence, close to the Gulf.  This artist is from (I think) Mississippi, where the BP oil spill wreaked so much environmental damage.

Guardian of the Gulf by Sarah Scott

A trip to China (according to the blurb card on the wall) was the inspiration for this garden-inspiring quilt:

The lotus by Darlene Garstecki

The artist made this quilt as a mourning quilt after his mother passed away.  On the card he noted: “We used to walk a road in North Carolina and talk.  I have since thought that maybe the words we spoke were captured in the trees; and if I was very quiet and listened very hard, I would hear the words falling back down on me, as I walked alone.”  …… I so love that thought…..

The View from the Road by Murray Johnston

On the other side of the building, I spotted these small kimono which (if I have deciphered the enlarged photo correctly) are by Judy Tipton Rush–really stunning quilting:

Judy Tipton Rush's pieces in the gallery store

The building is a craft/arts center, and had this gorgeous light fixture (I don’t even want to know how much it was for sale!…. and it’s not like there would be a place for it in my house!)

Way cool light fixture

And I’ve been having fun in my working sketchbook/notebook of ideas messing around with collage and magazine pages, so I really enjoyed these two sets of mixed media collages by Kathy Bay.  From looking at the photo closely, I believe they are acrylic paint plus paint on paper that she painted (as opposed to “found” papers).

Crayola Land by Kathy Bay

By Kathy Bay, these remind me of icebergs

Now, of course, I wish I’d taken photos of ALL the quilts, but at least you have a sampling! Enjoy, and I promise to be back without such a long gap between posts!