Annual International Quilt Show

This amazing thread painted quilt was BEST OF SHOW, at the Mancusco World Quilt New England  show at Manchester, New Hampshire which Rachel and I attended Thursday. The title is "Three Watchers. The quilter from South Africa is Kathryn Hamer Fox. The photo color is a little faded compared to the actual quilt.  It was about 4x6 foot.  We thought it was stunning.

We always go to that show because the  international quilts chosen are often wonderful. Most are not traditional, and most are art quilts of very, very high craftsmanship.

Ms. Fox also did a Rhino quilt  called "Once There Were" Click the photos to see it entirely.

As you can see in both, the backgrounds are various fabrics.  She underlay her thread painting with fabric also. I would love to have a photo catalog of the international entries in the show but no such exists and I've found that photographing more than the most memorable is pointless. Not that there weren't many excellent quilts by American quilters.

Mancuso is a large organization that mounts this international show in about a dozen venues around the USA each year.  In the Radison in Manchester there are two quite large exhibition rooms and they fill both,  (that includes a great many venders). Various area quilt guilds are invited to show special groups and there are always several special exhibitions on themes. We did not take time to look at venders and we missed some of the American exhibits because our time was limited.

Two especially noticable quilts, one from Israel and one from South Africa used a online program where a photo can be pixelated and printed out as a pattern for making a quilt. The result is a little like the paintings of Chuck Close. The one from Israel was of Leonardo's David (just his head). As we were watching it a woman showed us that if we look at it on the Iphone screen, we could see the  picture much more clearly than when standing 3 feet away. This was very true of the David (below) which was done in  one inch fabric squares and even more so with a Mandella portrait that was done inch and a half squares.  I photographed only David. Going through the program I cannot figure out what this was named and therefore can't list the artist's name.  If you click on any of these photos they will enlarge somewhat.  This was a magnificent quilt show and it was well attended. I wish more people understood that such shows are ART EXHIBITS to a very large extent. And quilting all around the world has moved from utility to self-expression on a very high level.

My favorite quilt

This quilt by Robin Mcguire, entitled "Migrants" is my favorite from the Bayberry Quilt show that was taken down yesterday.  The photo doesn't really show that the black lines you see in the foreground is a plastic strip tied and clipped so that it mimics barbed wire. Before the show I knew this was going to be my favorite, because Robin is a very talented artist who is in the Uncommon Threads art quilt group that I am priviledged to belong to.  I think it was the only overtly political statement in the show.

The show was quite successful, financially, I suspect (because it was very well attended Thursday and Friday although not so much so yesterday (another perfect beach day). There were some 300 quilts -- a few antique, about 1/3 full bed size (between king and double width) and the others were smaller -- a slightly surprising majority of smaller quilts, mostly meant to be wall quilts.  There were some spectacular traditional quilts and many more modern and nontraditional quilts. The workmanship was high quality, the use of color outstanding.  It was a delight to walk through ... more than once.

I'll post a few other quilts in a few days.