I am sure by now most of you are familiar with the book “The Artists Way” and the concept of a regular Artists Date for oneself. I have been doing this since I was a design student, and thought it was an obvious thing to do as a creative person. Imagine my delight when I read the book long ago and discovered it was a ‘thing’.
Giving yourself a regular creative inspiration outing is a habit, and it flexes creative muscles that might otherwise atrophy. Over the years I’ve expanded my range and have been getting involved in jurying, cataloging, and installing art where possible. This week I volunteered to do some cataloguing work for a fundraiser event at our Wild Animal Sanctuary. Over the years many artists have donated wildlife art to the sanctuary, inspired by the lions tigers and bears who live there. I joined a group of retired school teachers and went through the stash of art (I was the photographer) to prep the stash for a fundraiser event later this year. The plus side was…I got to see LOTS of great wildlife art up close!
Studying color trends is a parallel creative pursuit, and next week the color collaboration is coming to eQuilter! We are hosting a regional color workshop for the Color Marketing Group in our classroom. If you are an art director, designer, or product developer, you should join us for a one-day color trend collaborative workshop. You don’t need to be a CMG member to participate, but you might want to join after you experience the Chromazone. We still have room for color and design professionals to join us on Friday May 11. Call or email customer service for the link to the info/registration page.
We are getting closer to the deadline for the Love Your Mother challenge/contest and it is exciting to see those entries coming in now – the final date to register and upload images for jurying is May 15. I can’t wait to see the rest of the entries!
Last week I announced our 2 workshops with portrait artist Lea McComas. She has just launched a new project called the Border Wall Quilt and is asking quilt artists from both sides of the fence (pardon the pun) to contribute bricks to this project which will become a large installation…to hopefully spark an open dialogue on the topic.
This Saturday we are hosting another Charity Sewing Day, trying to finish more quilts for the May 10 deadline for the next batch of Nepal Quilts. If you are coming, please RSVP with Dana in customer service.
The collage above features a Chameleon quilt from the Tokyo Quilt Festival (see the artist’s name in Kanji characters in the lower right corner) plus several fabrics in stock now. Notice the dense machine stitching in the black background…there were a lot of machine-stitched quilts in Tokyo this year which is a big change.
We hope to see you soon at one of our events!
sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul
********
eQuilter Classroom & Event Calendar:
May 5 – eQuilter Charity Sewing Day! (Please RSVP)
May 10 – Deadline for dropping off Nepal Quilts
May 11 – eQuilter Chromazone – Color Marketing Group @ eQuilter
March 1 – May 15 – Registration for ‘Love Your Mother‘ Quilt Challenge
July 16 – 20 – Lea McComas Workshops @ eQuilter
Coming soon – workshops with Betty Busby and MJ Kinman @ eQuilter!
Luana’s Travel Calendar:
May 18-20 – Quilt Market – Portland OR
May 29 – 31 – Quilt Canada – Vancouver BC
June 1 – Opening Reception for Hollis Chatelain – RMQM – Golden CO
June 27 – July 11 – Sweden
Aug 9-11 – Birmingham UK – Festival of Quilts
Nov 13-19, 2018 – POLAR BEAR Tour
