I choose my daily walk time, when possible, based on its proximity to the sunset hour. The marvel of the light nuances, from the sky to the sea, evolves at every moment. The water in front of my town is usually calm, due to moderate sea depth and closed coast around the gulf. In windy days, salt and pepper tint the waves.
Twenty years ago, when University studies allowed noon time breaks, I went swimming every day, and I checked light rays from the underside of the water surface. One of my happiest memories from that period is the friendly behaviour of sea breams, who liked to swim together with me!
“Sealights” is a quilt that includes and abstracts many viewpoints on the above subjects. It will be travelling with MQG exhibit through the US, together with representative works from QuiltCon 2022. Already on the schedule this year, the quilts will be traveling to Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, the “Airing of the Quilts” in Iowa, as well as shows in Texas, Virginia, and Tennessee. If you have the opportunity, catch it at the shows, because after the tour “Sealights” will land to its new home… not too distant from another coastal line!
I first met Giovanna @jonikquilts on the verge of new year 2020, thanks to the common interest for improv modern patchwork.
After noticing her on the web thanks to common attendance of an on-line workshops, where the sneak peeks of our works in progress suggested we had a similar taste for color choice, I decided to break the ice inviting Giovanna to start a joint project. During the first phone call, while Giovanna was on the mountain enjoying family holidays, I proposed her to meet in person. A new year was starting: the best moment to fill our agenda with new plans! Even if this required to take the train, Giovanna liked the idea of travelling, and started to fill her luggage.
In February 2020, Giovanna took the train from Mestre, near Venice, and reached me in Trieste. What was the content of her suitcase? A bundle of quilts! All the quilts she had sewn in the recent years. Large quilts, small quilts, mini quilts, top to be finished, flying thread…
Received in my home, the quilts popping out from Giovanna’s bag seemed to be endless. It was the first chance we had to see each other in person, and to look at all the quilting work done by both of us until that day. We started to plan a weekend in Prague together, to visit an international patchwork fair. We didn’t know that this one was the last occasion for us to meet, in years.
Until today.
Technology helped us to pass the difficult coming months: sometime crises create new opportunities. We met virtually, we tightened the connection with another Italian improv quilter, Carla Beretta @falcolupo, and ideas started to take shape: the construction of Quilt Improv Studio project.
Now, one of our old ideas took shape.
This Saturday we had the first occasion to meet physically again. It’s been a great experience to be in person, for the first time after almost two years, during the inauguration of the gallery The tales of the needle and the brush. A great occasion to meet quilters earlier known only through the web, and to appreciate the beautiful details of their quilts in a way that photography cannot express. Thanks Giovanna for passing through all plan changes we had in these complex times, and to continue with enthusiasm in promoting our initiatives together with Carla! Remote ways of working will remain our main tool: our quilting community reaches whatever distance.
On the back of this photo: the quilts Giovanna and myself made with identical palette, jointly purchased just in time before everything was closing down. Now they have finally been put one at the side of each other, in a real exhibit where we could be together.
When it was time for me to propose a palette for the month of October, I immediately thought of the pumpkin color and to the works I have done with orange fabric. I chose my quilt made for the first Quilt Improv Studio game, and I listed the colors used at that time to share its juicy palette: my favorite oranges, white and a well contrasting dark blue.
You can find the resulting fabric selection made in collaboration with Patchworkvictim, at the following page of their blog.
In this video you can see how nice prints using orange blue and white we could find, to match with the solids chosen at the start.
If you wish to see with your eyes the orange quilt which was created following this palette, you can soon come to visit the quilt+painting gallery The tales of the needle and the brush, opening on October 23rd in Trieste (Italy) and displaying not only orange quilts, but also blue quilts and black and white quilts, all stemming out from the fantasy of improv quilters who followed Quilt Improv Studio game prompts. And much more!
Two of my quilts are part of the juried show Quilts Unlimited, on display since Saturday, October 02, 2021 to Saturday, December 04, 2021 in Old Forge, New York.
The organizers made a great job in creating previews and event related material, collected in the online reception page. I can feel like being there, in good company of beautiful works from Australia to US, even if I’m not travelling there. My quilts travel more than me!
In this video you can find a selection of hanging quilts. It’s nice to see that my yellow “Grasshopper path” stands near to a blue quilt, getting contrasting colors effect in the sequence of the display, while my “Landing” mates with a quilt having similar repetitions and symmetry scheme. Thanks to View Center for Arts and Culture for this awesome exhibit!
I’m pleased to announce that a group gallery event is coming soon in Trieste (Italy), dedicated to the two techniques of patchwork and painting, at Atelier dell’arte in Raffineria street 4/c, opening on October 23rd until November 13th.
It is an occasion where multiple streams will be collected: stories of connections from a distance, in a period when people could not meet in person but still wanted to be creative together; the sense of a widening perspective that can be achieved on a canvas when a painter wants to feel in open air while being in stay-at-home mode; the solidarity that can be materialized thanks to the effort of tens of quilters, such as the sewing marathon resulting in a donation to GOAP rescue centre preventing violence against women.
In this venue we had the opportunity to host some examples of the works realized during the challenges launched by Quilt Improv Studio. It is the first opportunity to put together Quilt Improv Studio games participants from the surrounding of the venue site in Trieste, wishing that this be repeated also in the future with a wider participation and related logistics arrangements!
All these happenings will be presented in the gallery “The tales of the needle and the brush”: flyer here below!
In the last year, many virtual doors leading to a connection with the quilting community have been opened. Participation to quilting contests, taking place fully on line, was a new opportunity: thanks to this, I have submitted my work images and I have participated to Quiltcon Together and to Beyond the Festival of Quilts, whose exhibits were made in format of photo gallery on their web sites.
The lesson learnt there is still alive and kicking, applied in similar fashion for our quilting games, in the fully virtual project Quilt Improv Studio, that I share with Carla @falcolupo and Giovanna @jonikquilts and many other quilters from around the world.
This year, part of the fair venues ventured again into the in-person format, and all the features demonstrating physicality and geographical distance hit back again, reminding me how much remotely I’m seated respect to the epicenters of quilting initiatives.
I rolled my quilt among acid free packing paper. I visited a logistic company, where I paid a deposit for extra costs, to be received after passage through extra European Union custom duties. I followed (with maniac page-refresh need) the tracking of my shipment. I read a later-than-planned, but still in time respect to ultimate deadline, update that clarified: quilt has been delivered (after covering a distance of 1.154 miles). And then, silence. My quilt traveled, but I stayed at home. Was it all going to become real?
Unexpectedly, the virtual connections built in the last year, helped me to visualize what was happening there.
A sense of proximity was brought back by one of the Quilting Angels, who documented her unpacking and hanging operations for many quilts, including mine. I screened the details of photos taken behind-the-scenes, and I learnt how smart was the hanging system with multi-level fixture options. How brilliant was the effect of showing quilts with dark background and a good illumination setup? I even received detail and full scenery view from a MQG contact (pictures below are courtesy of Samantha @threads_of_my_life, who was in Birmingham and recognized my work “East”).
If you’ve not been in the UK in the last days, I invite you to appreciate the +400 quilts participating to the Festival of Quilts 2021, now visible on-line at the following link. Organizers opened the venue in Birmingham to in-person visitors last weekend, but maintained from last year also the use of a nice web platform displaying all photos of received quilts.
An inclusive experience, nowadays, is the one which couples real and virtual opportunities altogether.
Some months ago I went through a Facebook post that raised my curiosity. It contained a light blue spot looking familiar to me. I observed better: it was the story of a quilt gallery, held in Elba Island (the place where Napoleon reigned exiled in 1814). Just below the numbered text covering the picture, something real was playing hide and seek: a quilt of mine!
I didn’t know that this quilt of mine was travelling. It was created for the 2019 Abilmente fair in Vicenza: it contained a bit of indigo fabric, participating to a national quilt contest based on the use of such color. I named it “Pond”. I allowed this quilt to be available for 15 months, potentially joining further events, but many quilting fairs were cancelled, several months have passed, and I forgot of its destiny.
The Facebook post brought “Pond” to my eyes again, since my quilting friend Ariella shared pictures of an unexpected initiative. Thanks to the post, I learnt of the exhibit arranged by Elba quilt guild, in collaboration with Quilt Italia, titled Patchwork as art to sew during times: “Pond” happened to become part of this event.
This was fascinating! It suggested images of somebody’s hands, taking care of your work among other pieces, bringing it in Portoferraio town, hanging it on the wall, and arranging a group exhibit, all of this like a surprise. The gallery contained works of quilters from Elba, and a section of the indigo contest pieces, thanks to the organization by Anna Diversi.
Such photos were the first ones I could see since Spring, referring to a quilt gallery becoming true. It was the end of August 2020. In that moment, I felt confident that I could arrange my exhibit too, within the end of Summer.
The virtual gallery, Tagliamento king of rivers, lands on the real world! The exhibit vernissage will take place in Trieste (Italy), on Saturday September 26th, hosted by Atelier dell’arte, with video live-stream at 18.00 CEST on Facebook page MostraTagliamento (discussion will take place in Italian language).
You will find photo prints on aluminium and acrylic for an immersive experience, quilt wall panels talking of water and sand, all hosted in an elegant Liberty style building, with large rooms that allow distancing; the attendance requires booking.
I’m so glad to host discussion on how to provide statutory protection to Tagliamento river and ecosystem, thanks to event guest Massimo Moretuzzo, regional councilor and primary promoter of the change.org petition aimed to enlist Tagliamento into Unesco Natural World Heritage. A few days have passed since the moment I subscribed the petition on-line, and already some more thousands of supporters have been added. Join us!
It’s not me who entitled Tagliamento as a king. The European relevance of the main alpine river ecosystem is established in scientific literature by German and Swiss researchers, creating the definition “den König der Alpenflüsse“. After reading the article by Tockner et al., “The Tagliamento River: a model ecosystem of European importance“, I understood why the most beautiful photos I took along Tagliamento streams were from the zone between Amaro and Cornino towns: because that area is recognized as the one with highest biodiversity!
Last year I was planning a travel to Birmingham with my family, with the Festival of Quilts as one of the destinations. Some friends listened to our discussion and said: “Why not? Let’s go to London all together, and you Paola shall be our guide for English translation!”
At that time, we postponed the plan to year 2020. But we’ve not purchased any ticket to Birmingham yet: the holidays were adjusted to visiting the mountain in our surroundings, in order to remain within our region.
Still, my opportunity to join the Birmingham event arrived anyway: the Festival of Quilts went “live”!
Today I’ve attended the virtual inauguration, and the emotion was there when the moderator announced: “The winner is…”. And this happened for no less than 15 times: so many, indeed, were the categories of the virtual competition, and I could appreciate the view of very elegant winning quilts, including striking works from kids down to 5-9 years old category!
I participated to the event with one of my works too. My quilt “Seaside” is now visible in the on-line gallery of the Festival of Quilts virtual competition, category contemporary quilts: I decided to propose my entry to the contest, by submitting one of the rare cases where I used raw edge applique.
“Seaside” is dedicated to the colors and ripples of Adriatic sea, wetting my home town Trieste. Shells, sand and sunlight reflections on wave crests appear as symbols on this work. The longitudinal development of the layout allowed me to play with the band line direction: I quilted three long stripes with walking-foot, that can be read either as waves, or as an abstract shape placed at the panel core.
A quilt by Giovanna Nicolai is on display too, in the modern category of the Festival of Quilts 2020 gallery. I love this work of her, titled “Fluorescent hope”: it’s featured also on the home page of the site hosting our joint project Quilt Improv Studio, that we share with Carla Beretta. Giovanna wrote in her article, themed on the recent expansion of digital quilt world: “We will participate to inauguration ceremonies staying at home”: I’ve experienced this right now, together with hundreds of quilters connected at the same time to the Festival opening ceremony, during my lunch break, with a tasty dish of spaghetti and meat sauce!
Partecipazione alla mostra concorso “Indigo… il colore dei sogni“, indetto da Quilt Italia, con esposizione itinerante iniziata presso la fiera di Vicenza Abilmente di ottobre.
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