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Archive for the ‘International Quilt Festival’ Category

Rising Stars exhibit and more in Quilt Festival/Quilt Scene mag!

Wednesday, October 25th, 2017

Squee! Not only an article on the Rising Stars exhibit, but right at the front of the magazine! Thank you so much Cate Prato for writing the article and Vivika Hansen DeNegre for running it!  There’s a couple more pages of interview with both of us.

WOW…what a delightful surprise!  I knew I’d have a short 1-page article on “going pro” in Quilt Scene magazine.  I had forgotten the interview–THANK YOU Cate–with Cate Prato about the Rising Stars exhibit, which is on p. 15, right up front, and then to have Widgeon featured in the Special Exhibits section of photos, too…wow!

Can’t believe the contents, so delighted to share the pages with so many people whose work I admire. Can’t wait to see it “in the real” at Festival!

My quickie article with ten tips from the years I’ve worked in the industry on how YOU can make your dream come true, too.

Karlyn Bue Lorenz is the other Rising Star artist; her work is bold and colorful and abstract mostly, on left page. And of course that is our beloved Pigwidgeon on the right.

Come see me at Festival–I’ll be at my exhibit more often than not and will do gallery tours 2 or 3 times a day (schedule will be posted at the exhibit), will be doing a Meet the Teacher panel discussion, and two Open Studios demos.   See you there!

If you’d like to order my book, The Art of Sarah Ann Smith, you can do so with the hotlink on my store page or using this hotlink.  The book is way more than an exhibit catalog:  it includes all 24 works in the exhibit, plus 20 more, a bit about my life including photos of me as a wee kid, a senior in high school and a not-as-old-as-I-am-now mom, and some how-to tips and hints.

Back and front cover of my  book, a companion to the exhibit but a lot more. Available at http://www.blurb.com/b/8193077-the-art-of-sarah-ann-smith

 

Rising Stars article from Quilt Festival

Tuesday, September 26th, 2017

What a concept–two blogposts in a week!    See the previous post for my new book, The Art of Sarah Ann Smith (or go to the Blurb store page to order here).

Did you know that you can get a free e-zine, a digital mini magazine, from Quilts Inc (the folks that bring you International Quilt Festival) called Friends@Festival? Click on the link in the photo at the end of this post to subscribe. This issue, I am delighted to share, there is an article on the Rising Stars exhibit and Karlyn But Lorenz and me. Karlyn isn’t on FB and doesn’t have a website, so I was delighted to see more of her work and learn more about her. Check out the article linked here for an interview with each of us!

Here’s just a quick tease, the start of the interview with me. I am just so blown away that this is truly happening!

Here’s what the e-zine looks like when it arrives in your inbox:

Friend@Festival e-zine. To subscribe, go here.

Once again, THANK YOU to everyone at Quilts Inc, for the incredible gift the International Quilt Association (non profit) and Quilts Inc (company) have give to the world to promote quilting over the past four-plus decades.

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Rising Stars Exhibit, Houston Quilt Festival

Sunday, September 24th, 2017

Hi all!  I can share that I will be half of the Rising Stars special exhibit in Houston this upcoming International Quilt Market (Oct. 27-30) and International Quilt Festival (November 1-5).

Back and front cover of my soon-to-be-ready book, a companion to the exhibit but a lot more. I’ll post here and on Facebook as soon as it is available…in about 10 days I hope. My extra special thanks to folks on FB for feedback, especially Paula Blanchard for copy editing here, and Susan Fletcher King and Neroli Henderson for greatly appreciated graphic layout advice and help!

Between now and then I will be sharing some of the 24 of my art quilts that are in this exhibit, and in a week or two share the book I have written that includes all 24 works and more (available here and directly on Blurb).  As I said in the Introduction to my book,

It was a good thing I was sitting down when the inquiry popped up on my screen. After years of being in group exhibits and national level quilt shows, I had finally gathered up my courage and applied to do a solo exhibit in the Camden (Maine) Public Library’s Picker Room, the best public art space in the immediate area. I was accepted, made new work, selected my best pieces, and put them on display in September 2016. And I shared on my blog and Facebook. That was when I got a message from someone at Quilts, Inc., the folks who put on International Quilt Market and Festival, inquiring

“What are your plans to travel your very excellent exhibit?”

I would have fallen down from shock if I hadn’t been sitting.

I was beyond delighted when Quilts Inc. used my little bitty 12″ square portrait of Widgeon on their Special Exhibits page and in the catalog!

Our beloved pug in technicolor!

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Go Tell it at the Quilt Show

Thursday, August 10th, 2017

A blast from the past..almost three years ago at International Quilt Festival Houston, 2014,  I was interviewed by the Save Our Stories project.   I was able to record a little about making the portrait of our son Eli during Cross Country season 2013.  The recording has finally been uploaded to the internet, so I thought I would share.  This quilt will also be in the upcoming Rising Stars exhibit which will feature the work of two artists, me and Karlyn Bue Lorenz.  I hope you enjoy this visit, and even more I hope I will get to see some of you at my exhibit of 24 of my pieces.

Retrospective book of my work–input sought!

Wednesday, August 9th, 2017

Hi folks!   I am in the midst of preparing a book of my work including the 24 pieces that will be in my part of the Rising Stars exhibit this coming fall at International Quilt Market and International Quilt Festival Houston, as well as many of my other best pieces from the past decade and bits about my life and influences.  If you have experience selling books from either Blurb or CreateSpace (an Amazon company) let me know.  I am still undecided which platform to use.  I would dearly love your input, whether you have self-published or as a consumer.

 

Do I use Blurb? or Createspace? Where would you go to purchase… I’d have a link on my blog etc. to either option so folks who don’t attend Quilt Festival may also purchase a copy.

I feel the quality of the Premium Magazine at Blurb is definitely better than the book I can create through CreateSpace–I have copies of Blurb books, Blurb premium magazine (which you would never know is a “magazine” as it is exceptional quality–a teacher I know uses this for her books and it is excellent), and several books (exhibit catalogs) from CreateSpace.   I really really want top quality over profits on this, but I also would like folks to be able to purchase the book easily online.

With both platforms, I can select an 8 1/2 x 11  portrait format (vertical) so I can include large images with good detail shots.   For print quality, Blurb Premium “Magazine” wins and the cost (unlike Blurb books) is reasonable.  For customer ease and distribution, using Createspace on Amazon is better because Amazon takes a much lower percentage of the sales price is you use their platform.  What to do?

For international customers, absolutely the Amazon/CreateSpace option is better because it can be  on-demand printed from European Amazon sites, thereby reducing postage costs.  For those in the US, I can have it on my site and Amazon-or-Blurb, depending on my final decision. The Blurb “magazine” is better overall print and paper quality, the template software is superb, but even if I can manage to list it on Amazon, I would make almost nothing (less than a dollar probably) per copy to keep it in the affordable range.

Please let me know your thoughts!   Would you buy from Blurb?   Or do you vastly prefer Amazon?  Price would be $25-30 plus any shipping depending on final page count–I’m guesstimating 80 pages, but could be a bit more or a bit less.  My goal is to keep the price under $30.

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