Squee! Not only an article on the Rising Stars exhibit, but right at the front of the magazine! Thank you so much Cate Prato for writing the article and Vivika Hansen DeNegre for running it!  There’s a couple more pages of interview with both of us.

WOW…what a delightful surprise!  I knew I’d have a short 1-page article on “going pro” in Quilt Scene magazine.  I had forgotten the interview–THANK YOU Cate–with Cate Prato about the Rising Stars exhibit, which is on p. 15, right up front, and then to have Widgeon featured in the Special Exhibits section of photos, too…wow!

Can’t believe the contents, so delighted to share the pages with so many people whose work I admire. Can’t wait to see it “in the real” at Festival!

My quickie article with ten tips from the years I’ve worked in the industry on how YOU can make your dream come true, too.

Karlyn Bue Lorenz is the other Rising Star artist; her work is bold and colorful and abstract mostly, on left page. And of course that is our beloved Pigwidgeon on the right.

Come see me at Festival–I’ll be at my exhibit more often than not and will do gallery tours 2 or 3 times a day (schedule will be posted at the exhibit), will be doing a Meet the Teacher panel discussion, and two Open Studios demos.   See you there!

If you’d like to order my book, The Art of Sarah Ann Smith, you can do so with the hotlink on my store page or using this hotlink.  The book is way more than an exhibit catalog:  it includes all 24 works in the exhibit, plus 20 more, a bit about my life including photos of me as a wee kid, a senior in high school and a not-as-old-as-I-am-now mom, and some how-to tips and hints.

Back and front cover of my  book, a companion to the exhibit but a lot more. Available at http://www.blurb.com/b/8193077-the-art-of-sarah-ann-smith

Hi everyone…a quick pop-in to share that Quilting Arts TV has begun airing.   Check with your local PBS station to find out when it will air in your area.  In Maine, it will be on Maine Public’s Create channel (I think).  If you’re like me and don’t have access to a PBS station (grumble) that airs it, you can download the episodes or series at Interweave, here.  I’ve even got a new badge:

Sarah’s on Quilting Arts TV again, Episodes 2001, 2007 and 2012.

I’ll be talking about my journey from hobbyist to professional in the industry (Episode 2001), how to get crisp corners when facing art quilts (Episode 2007), and  my way of using thermofax screens to blend collaged fabrics prior to quilting (Episode 2012).  I hope you’ll enjoy the journey with me–nothing of mine is earth shattering, but not much in life is.  It’s the little tweaks and changes that make the difference, and I hope my tips and techniques will improve your quilting and life.

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It’s been rather the international year for me, since my Milkweed No. 2 art quilt, in “a matter of time” exhibit curated by Australian Brenda Gael Smith (no relation alas!) has also been published in Quilters Companion, an Aussie magazine!

Cover of Quilters Companion; first line item on the red banner at the bottom is A Matter of Time.

Opening pages of the article.

and here’s “my” page, with my new friend and fellow exhibitor Mirjam Aigner.   I have to say I love the internet…how else would I have found this call for entry, sent my quilt off to the other side of the world to tour, and made new friends without having met them in person?

My Milkweed No. 2, on the left, and Mirjam Aigner’s multi-layered work on the right.

You’ll have to track down a copy of the magazine to see the other quilts.  I do miss the days when international postage wasn’t insane!  I used to subscribe to an Aussie and a New Zealand quilt magazine, but the  price became prohibitive.  But for an issue in which I’m published, yep, I’ll take that!

Well it was certainly a surprise when Jamie Fingal, co-curator along with Leslie Tucker Jenison, of the Dinner@8 artist exhibits, wrote to say that my Descended from the Stars quilt  and the artwork of several others had been included in an article in Germany’s Patchwork Professional magazine about the Dinner@8 Artists!   It was a tad challenging negotiating the German (no English) website to order a copy, so I called my dear friend Jacquie Scuitto who, having lived most of her adult life in Germany, was able to translate it all and talk me through what to put where to make my order.   The magazine has arrived, and I am simply thrilled to be included in the selected works from the past eight years.

Cover of German Patchwork Professional, issue 04/2016. You can see on the left the banner for the article on Dinner At Eight Artists

The article begins with one of Leslie’s award-winning quilts and an interview with Jamie and Leslie, the co-curators of this annual exhibit.

I was thrilled to be included–there have been at least 30 quilts each year for 8 years, so that’s a LOT of quilts.  The article includes two each of Leslie and Jamie’s work, plus nine other quilts, including several of my favorites:  Haiku by Lyric Montgomery Kinard (a stunning simple but breathtaking portrait of her daughter), this year’s Tiles by Cathie Hoover, and my friend Susan Brubaker Knapp’s I see the Moon.   Congrats to all!

Descended from the Stars is in the top left, just above some of my favorites by Lyric Kinard and Susan Brubaker Knapp. Really, the work is so beautiful in the dinner@8 Exhibits that it is quite heady company to find that I, too, have work included.

Over the past six to seven years, I have been fortunate to be invited *and* be juried in to these exhibits, and I truly feel some of my best work has been for this series.   And of those, this quilt is one of my favorites EVER!

I am absolutely THRILLED with how my article for Machine Quilting Unlimited’s January/February 2016 issue turned out! I don’t think I’ve been this thrilled since the first time I was published, so thank you editor Kit Robinson and MQU Magazine!

The opening spread on my article about creating Descended From the Stars

Cover of the January/February 2016 Machine Quilting Unlimited (MQU) magazine with the article on the making of Descended From the Stars

In my last article for MQU about The Fourth Layer, Stabilizing the Quilt Sandwich (when doing intense quilting and/or threadwork), published in the  issue, I mused at the end that I might try to use my preferred choice, cotton duck, as the backing (the third layer) instead of as a fourth layer.  When I did just that in my quilt Descended From the Stars, I wrote editor Kit Robinson to share the results, thinking that readers might enjoy a quick update to the article.  Instead, she asked if I would write an article for their “Challenging Quilts” series!  You betcha I would, and now it is just published.

The quilt was made for the current Dinner@8 exhibit Affinity, and you can read the call for entry in the photo above, just to the right of the full-page image (and wow am I thrilled my photography looks so good and accurate on the page!).  At the top right of the right hand page you can read the quote written on the quilt, but I’ll also close this post with the quote which is fitting at this time of year.

The article takes you from the initial seed of an idea, to the call for entry, and through the creation process:  developing the working sketch, ideas abandoned, dyeing fabric (sometimes twice on the same cloth to get it right) and more.   I hope you will enjoy reading it; I certainly enjoyed making it and look forward to having it home.  And maybe entering it into shows or even selling it!  Yes, it would be hard to part with it, but a girl’s gotta make a living.

Squee! On the first page of the Table of Contents!

As soon as I get the pie, cranberries and stuffing made today, I’m going to treat myself to a good sit-down and cuppa tea with this issue.  I always love Margaret’s articles and her posts on FB–she is simply a brilliant quilter.  She can take an already-outstanding client top and make it over-the-moon fantastic.  And I am REALLY looking forward to (and trying out) my friend Lisa Walton’s article on painting on your quilt after doing the quilting.  I wanted to win her donation quilt in the last SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) auction, but missed out to someone with a larger budget than mine.  Good for SAQA, but sad for me.

And here’s that inspiring quote from Mirza Khan, the Religious Studies Director at my old High School, San Domenico:

We have descended from the stars.  We have risen through the forms of thousands of animals.  We have passed through the lives of our ancestors, our grandparents, and our parents.  And now we have been born into the moment of our supreme existence.  We have a life.  What will we do with it? –Mirza Khan (used with permission, and with great thanks)

Welcome back to the light now that solstice is passed (and I’ll get caught up on my Foto Fridays that have been missing since the demise of the old laptop) and on to the peace and joy of the season, and a long winter for making art!