Quilt National

Printer and scanner are back in business -- truly hot, humid weather makes me unable to do the simplest things, like fix a paper jam. Today the humidity is lower and temperature summertime pleasant and the job was a snap. SO.... a few remarks, not a review or critique. Above is the odd-ball quilt of the year. Every year there is one: One year it was a stick bed with a quilt on it, another yeat it was magnificent wooden squares, another year it was a quilt made of matchsticks. This year it is Julie John Upshaw's Ironing Board with the female figure drawn and quilted on it. It's as if every year the judges have to include one far out "quilt" -- this is a quilt, there are the requisite three layers, etc. {not always true}

Quilts I really liked: many of the ones that depended on color and quilting to make their statements: quilts by Kent Williams, Regina V. Benson, Sharon Bell (three long strips of simply quilted, dyed blue fabrics), Mary E. Stoudt (remaniscent of Klimt, Charlotte Patera, Marie Jensen. I have a great weakness for beautiful color beautifully quilted and simply presented. Nancy Erickson's animal quilts are always very powerful and ring primitive chords, her wolf was no exception. Of the pictoral quilts, I was struck by Carol Elrod's "Table for Two" [below} for both the humor and the verisimilitude.

There are so many other wonderful quilts. One must either see the show or purchase the catalog which uses Susan Shie's "The Tower" [of pressure cookers] as it's cover design. her godesses not only have the traditional third eye above the nose but a fourth eye in the hollow of the throat! and it is, as always heavily covered with the diary of a the month in which it was made. There are familiar and well known artists and a few unknown names, humor and deep seriousness. Finally there is a laugh out loud quilt, a large one in tones of gray/black and white, a portrait of George W. Bush -- entirely of fabric yoyos!!! This is subversive art at its very best.