Aullwood Art Quilt Show: Old Friends and Emerging Artists

Pam Geisel, "Sometimes I dream of Flying" 41" x 38".  $600

As you would expect, quite a few of my friends from the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network have pieces in the show.  Tonight, I'll start out with Pam Geisel's work.  You've seen quite a bit of her pieces here as she usually enters Aullwood as well.

Pam is very precise in her work, and often includes traditional piece work in it.  This is one of the pieces that Pam did for Project Quilting's "What's in a Name."  She did this as if she were a hawk flying over the patchwork fields we see here in this neck of the woods.  She put the traditional block "Birds in the Air" around it....although I often wondered why she didn't choose "Hovering Hawks,"  but that's quibbling.  I love how she showed the shadow of the hawk passing over the fields.  She described the process in making this piece in detail on her blog. To see other pieces of Pam's work, take a look at the gallery in her webpage.  I think you'll particularly get a kick out of "Inside of a Dog."

Two of our other members, Suzanne Kirchner and Ann Diller, were overjoyed to be accepted into the Aullwood show as their first juried show.  Suzanne is the newest in our group, and this one is perhaps a little more traditionally oriented than some of her other small pieces I have seen her do.

Entitled "In a Secret Garden," I don't think I can do any better than include Suzanne's artist statement, so here it is:

"This quilt seeks to invite the viewer into a sacred space via constructed layers and boundaries creating a "secret  garden" for protection and mediation, a contemplative space to reflect upon that of God within each of us. My intention is to celebrate and

protect the tiny yet fiercely alive creatures with which we share this good earth.

Why sewing? For me it is the perfect medium, a blend of creating and constructing.  I've always loved working by hand with fabrics, with all the colors and textures--so tangible and substantive.  A kind of magic happens mixing raw materials and focused energy, creating something which has never existed before--ideas now occupying space--it is unlike no other experience."

Ann Diller, "Tropical Persuasion, 18.25" x 23.5".  $450 (now sold)

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Ann Diller is the other person who had never entered a juried show.  However, her mother was an artist and one of the early members of MVAQN.  Ann does exquisite work and often does flowers.. For this piece she started out with a  photograph she took of a bromeliad.

Ann also had an eloquent description of her work:
"One only has to look at the eye of a bromeliad to see an exotic rosette designed to trap water and insects in its central vase.  My original photograph was used to capture this plant's marvelous design just as it would look to an insect hovering above its bulls-eye.  I chose batik and hand-dyed fabrics to replicate the vibrant colors of the plant and attached them with fusible applique and thread painting.  The central reproductive parts are hand beaded using Czech glass beads, floral wire and silk ribbon."

The center was amazing and I really have to hand it to her for hitting on this method to represent it.  Here you can see, at this very odd oblique angle, how the beads stand up above the fabric, just as they would in the heart of the bromeliad.

To add to the excitement, the graphic designers who Aullwood hired to design their invitation cards to their fall fundraiser actually chose Ann's quilt to made the design elements on the invitation. While it didn't use the whole piece, I think it looks great, and it is certainly exciting to have your work used in this way....and yes, they acknowledged her work on the card!