One of my goals this year was to enter Quilt National, a biennial quilt show held in Athens, Ohio at the Quilt Barn. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but never quite seemed to get around to it. For those of you who don't quilt, or aren't into art quilts, Quilt National is one of the most prestigious shows. This year, over 800 pieces were submitted, but only 80 were chosen by the panel of three judges.Quilts had to:
- possess the most basic structural characteristics of a quilt
- be an original design of the entrant
- have been completed after September, 2010
- measure no more than 100” or 254 cm. in either direction.
This piece, "View from the Abyss" was the piece I entered. Although you could enter up to three pieces, and in fact are encouraged to in order to show that you have a cohesive body of work, I didn't . If I could, I would have entered more, but the other part of the rules is that you can't have shown them anywhere. Not on a blog, not in a show....no where. I admit, when I finish a piece, I want to put them up immediately. In addition, the other pieces which I would have entered were already shown at Aullwood and at the SAQA regional show in Zanesville.
Curating exhibitions like this is difficult. Lots of people when they submit and don't get in begin to feel that they just aren't good enough. This is not always the case. Pieces have to speak to the jurors. It has to stick with them. Sometimes it is color that grabs them (but in this case, Candice Phelan showed me her submission and it was really amazing), sometimes the design, sometimes the message. The jurors make their own selections, discuss them, and ultimately pick.
That's a heck of a lot of quilts to go through.
So, I'll work even harder for 2015...and hopefully, my daughter will still be in Athens....and maybe, just maybe, I'll get in. In the meantime, I'm going to rework this piece a little, and try again...somewhere else.
6 comments:
ohhh love this and - well I love this - LOL!! So glad you shared this! I've long thought of QN as a lottery - so although I would truly encourage you always to work hard on your art - I imagine it should be just for the reason you're doing it - so it looks amazing. If you get into QN in 2015 - well that's just the cherry! Don't forget to link this up tomorrow on Off the Wall - this truly is special!
Lisa, I loved this quilt the first time you showed it at MVAQN. It is wonderful.
Thanks Nina Marie and Deb. Nina Marie, you are so right....and I will do some more refining and submit it elsewhere. I wrote another post today about the jurying process and my thoughts about the show....and trust me, while I would love to be part of this show, it just doesn't matter that I didn't get in this time around...and this new post reflects my perspective in a different way than I have thought about it in the past....
I love this direction you're taking, Lisa! Bravo on this piece; I really like it. So many surprises as you look closer: the color palette, the textural qualities, the hand stitching.... I do hope it's seen.
Quick question -- how big is this? (Hope I didn't miss the size posted right in front of me.)
Thanks Vivien.....I am reworking this a little and I am finding it is improving the design, so,the width is still up,for grabs, but it is 33" long.
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