Gone to the Birds: Aullwood Nature Center Show

Sunday was a very "art quilty" day. Each year the Aullwood Audubon Center in Englewood, OH sponsors a quilt show. The Miami Valley Art Quilt Network was instrumental in setting this show up with Aullwood many years ago, but moved away from it. Aullwood continues the show with a different theme each year. This year the theme was "Winged Messengers."

I have been meaning to get over there, and thought that it was coming down on Aug. 18. Imagine my horror when I visited the web page to see it was supposedly ending Aug. 9! You have to understand, I live probably within 10 miles of the center...and several of my friends from the MVAQN had quilts in the show...so I'd be really embarrassed, not to mention disappointed if I missed it....I had intended to enter the show myself, but didn't finish my quilt on time.

So, in sharing the show, I'll start with my cohorts in quilts from MVAQN. At left is Fran LaSalle's "Fantasy Forest." Fran does a lot of painting and applique. Fran draws on her background in biology and often paints her pieces. This is a more unusual for her as she really did a "fantasy" rather than some of her more realistic pieces. Fran quilts in Yellow Springs, OH.

Debra Bentley did this loon. Deb is relatively new to the MVAQN, and I love how she used the commercial fabrics. I feel that the ground is particularly good and the color blocking in the sky ads great interest.

Deb drew her inspiration from a trip to Isle Royal National Park, in Lake Superior. I must admit Isle Royal is a place near and dear to my heart as my brother worked there in the summers when he was a Forestry student at Michigan Technological University.


Pam Geisel of Yellow Springs is another recent addition to the MVAQN (that is to say, within the last two years). Pam has been exploring quilt mosaics. Pam lays the backing fabric out, then places the small pieces on top, securing the rest with a net and quilts through the layers to hold it together.

Because these pieces are fragile, she usually frames them and puts them under glass. My original photos weren't very good, because of that glass and because of how I was standing when I took the picture, so these next two photos Pam graciously shared with me and are hers.

The title of her piece is "Early Morning Hermit Thrush." I think Pam's words explain her piece best:

"My husband and I first encountered the Hermit Thrush on our honeymoon in southeastern Ohio. We were interested in its call which sounded like a wind chime to us.


"What interests me about traditional quilting is how a quilt square can look completely different if the shapes which make up the square are in different colors or tones of fabric. I am also fascinated by the secondary patterns that emerge when quilt blocks are arranged together. Lately, I've been doing more exploring with fabrics and making art quilts that incorporate traditional piecing but in new ways."

You can see more of Pam's work on her website,

http://www.forquiltssake.com




Kate Burch, who lives in Dayton proper, did this piece called "A Magical Night at the Seven Sighs." Kate's quilt is a recollection of a stay at the Inn of the Seven Sighs in Stintra, Portugal in 1997. She could see the comet Halle-Bopp in the sky. When her husband retired for the evening, they heard an owl call through their open window which overlooked an orange grove.

Kate researched the call and discovered that it was the Eurasian Tawny owl (Strix aluco).

She threadpainted the owl based on an image she found on owlpages.com. The border is a commercially digitized pattern from Husqvarna Viking. Many of Kate's quilts include either her own digitizing or commercially available machine embroidery elements.

Here's a detail of Kate's border. Both silk and cotton fabrics were used in the construction.

I plan on covering more of the show in the next several days. I was in a great hurry as Aullwood opened at 1:00 and I had to be at the quilt guild's meeting in Enon by 2:00....and unlike the birds, I can't fly from Englewood to Enon!