A couple of friends wrote after the Awards Ceremony on Wednesday night, but I can now blog about it because I received the official word this morning. My quilt, In the Act, was awarded a Judges Choice Award at Quilt Canada, the National Juried Show of the Canadian Quilters Association, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
In the Act, 2010
It is always gratifying to win an award, but I do have to say that I often experience feelings of ambivalence about ribbons. I find joy in being part of the show, and know that even without ribbons someone somewhere will like my work and be moved by it. That is what is important to me. My other purpose in entering shows is to get my work out there so people know about me, so I can continue making my living doing what I do. I am very cognizant that on another year, with other jurors, this quilt might have been rejected by CQA, and the judges wouldn't have even seen it.
For me what is most important when I look at a work of art is whether it has impact and how it makes me feel. Workmanship is secondary. Don't get me wrong, I like good workmanship, but impact comes first for me, so as long as the workmanship doesn't detract from the piece, it doesn't have to be the kind of workmanship that quilt show judges often look for. Being a quilt show judge is HARD, and I could not do it. The judges have to examine over 120 quilts at this show and rate them in several categories and everything has to be carefully documented. By those criteria they may be awarding ribbons to quilts they hadn't even considered based on initial impact. I think I must have ADD because I am just not interested in these details.
So to win a Judges Choice is a good thing I think. This is the chance for a judge to say "this is my favorite work". She can be completely subjective. For me it is immensely gratifying that someone looked at my work and loved it, understood it, was moved by it or impressed by it, or whatever the judge felt in this case.
So thank you to art quilter and judge Margie Davidson from Calgary for choosing my work. It is especially gratifying because, to be quite honest, I think In the Act is my favorite quilt of all the quilts I've made. Why? Because as a quilt artist without a formal art degree, I have struggled a lot with composition and design, and feel that in this piece I succeeded in what I set out to do. More about composition and design in my next blog post.
I also just received notice today that Red Stool has been juried into the
New Legacies 30th Art Quilt Exhibition at the Lincoln Arts Centre in Fort Collins, Colorado where it will be on exhibit July 3 to September 5.
Red Stool, 2011
I know Margie; I'm not surprised she selected your work, which is excellent. If I see her soon (and I might, as we have a SAQA Western Canada travelling exhibit kicking off in Red Deer soon), I will tell her how pleased I was she picked you. :-) Congratulations on the ongoing success of 'Red Stool', too. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Margaret. I must confess I was surprised that both the jurors and a judge seemed to like my work this year!
DeleteCongratulations, Elaine, on both quilts. I think your work is fantastic! I certainly enjoyed your workshop here in St. John's. Relax & have a glass of wine or two...
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Judy! Are you at Quilt Canada right now? I must confess I would prefer to celebrate with chocolate over wine ... my downfall!
DeleteNo, I'm still in St. John's.Chocolate & wine go nicely together.
DeleteCongratulations, Elaine, your work is SO wonderful and you deserve the recognition. Oh and I tried your dyeing method you shared on your blog, but it didn't turn out quite like I hoped it would. I blogged about it last week, you can check it out if you're so inclined --
ReplyDeleteThank you for your congrats Laura! I went to your blog to look at your results, and I am so sorry to hear about your dog! I know how hard it is to make the decision to euthanize.
DeleteYour colours on your hand-dyed fabrics don`t look as vibrant as mine. What kind of cotton are you using? I use combed cotton lawn from TrendTex. It is the very same fabric that Hoffman uses for their batiks, so it has a lovely sheen and a very high thread count. The denser the thread count the more dye sites there are to take up the dye. I also use a higher concentration of soda ash than most dyers. I don`t see a lot of yellow on your fabric, so that makes me wonder if you were avoiding it, or if your obliterated it with too much blue and red? I can tell you honestly that students in my classes have had good results. I`m also not sure if you manipulated the fabric so there were no white spots after pouring the dye on, or whether you just poured it over and let it do what it wants. I do manipulate as I am not fond of white areas. Also, did you use urea in your dye solution to increase the dye`s solubility in water? I also don`t see as much mottling as on mine so I am wondering if it was nicely scrunched into a container? These are all the things that come to mind. Hope this helps.
Elaine
Congratulations on the Judge's Choice award. And that little red stool is becoming quite famous. It's truly wonderful.
ReplyDeleteMartha Ginn
Congrats on the Judge's Choice Award. I agree that it is an important one. I love this quilt, too. The shading, lights and shadows are perfect.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Norma. And congrats to you on your acceptance into New Legacies. I saw your name on the list!
ReplyDeleteElaine