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IQA Festival Houston, 2006–part 2, Journal Quilts
I joined the QuiltArt list in late 2002, just as everyone who participated in the journal quilts that first year was sending in their journals for display in Houston. I promptly signed up the next year, in January, to participate, and have been part of it ever since. This past year, Karey Bresenhan, one of the founders of IQA and Festival (and a lot of other great stuff) put together a book called Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project.
The book, by the way, can be ordered online from Quilting Arts Magazine, which is also the publisher. As usual for their magazine and books, the photography is what quilt photography ought to be! First I’ll show you a little bit of the journal exhibit this year, then share the book.
Here I am standing next to my journals…it was so cool, the first time I walked up there were two women both taking pictures of my journals….how cool is that?!
And here are my friend Marie’s journals this year, about her many cats:
I totally LOVED the green silk border on this one:
I’m honored to have not one or two but five journals in this book, including my very first ever. The January 2003 journal is extra special because I asked both Karey and my oldest son Joshua for the “OK” (and received it!) to use a piece of Joshua’s second grade art as the basis for my first journal. I was surprised when we were given the chance to edit our text for the book to realize that a mere three years ago I was using paint and metallic threads on a quilt for the first time…what a long way I’ve come in such a short time! You should have seen Joshua’s eyes light up when I opened the book first to “his” page and he said “that’s that’s that’s my thing!”
And even better, it made the introductory pages…look at the thumbnails on the bottom right, and that’s it on the left side!
A while back the editor, Patricia Bolton, told me I had made the opening of the section of the Flowers, Plants and Trees Chapter (the book is divided into 1-Series, 2-Stories, 3-Flowers, Plants and Trees, 4-Animals and Insects, 5-Landscapes and Special Places, 6-Faces and Figures, and 7-Abstract). Well, it was even better than that…turn the page from the divider to Chapter 3 and this is what you see….all three of these are my journal quilts! The large one is from January 2004, the others are the January and February 2006 journals:
Finally, I have a self-portrait in Chapter 6, Faces:
This quiltlet was also from 2004; I used Photoshop Elements to turn a photo (snapped with a so-so camera by holding it at arms’ length and clicking!) into a black and white, then re-colored with thread.
And the story wouldn’t be complete without Marie. She and I began the journal journey together, and they even hung our two series next to each other in 2003. She submitted the first two photos for 2006 not realizing they were also being considered for the book…not only did they both make it, but they both got full-page spreads, AND the one of Odie was the one and only journal quilt (out of about 1800!) that was included in the show catalog!!!! Way to go Marie!
Just to give you an idea of the scope of the exhibit, here is one shot of the display this year:
There were something like 200 series of journals…in this photo you can see only nine of those 200…..drat, wish I’d taken the wwwiiiiddddeeeee angle view photo!
There will apparently be just one more year for the journal quilt exhibit, and Karey has said it will be different than these first five years. We have no idea what she has up her sleeve, but I’m sure it will be good. Karey always has great ideas, and I’ll just have to wait until after the New Year to find out “what’s next.”
November 9th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
I am impressed! I have thought about quilt jouranals and maybe that is something I will start next January.
November 10th, 2006 at 7:33 am
What a lovely book! I can’t believe how huge it is. Jam packed with color and inspiration, and great stories. What a delight to see . I loved Elizabeth Poole’s (www.elizabethpoole.com )Torso series, one quilt of which is pictured on the left next to your self-portrait. And Marie’s cats made me long to see mine. Houston was enormous. Thanks for sharing your experiences!
November 10th, 2006 at 8:54 am
Sarah, congratulations on your inclusion in the Journal quilt book. It is awesome (and heavy!) I’ve been taking pics of the JQs every year – yours are great, and please tell Marie that I enjoyed her cat pages immensely! You both are very talented chicks! 🙂