News from the Portland Group

In July, over 20 Portland members, joined by some of our friends from Central Oregon and Valley South, staffed the SAQA booth at the new Quilt!Knit!Stitch! show in Portland. We signed up 21 new members for SAQA (yay!), SAQA members from several States led walk-throughs of the SAQA exhibits on display - Metaphors on Aging and Text Messages. Thanks to SAQA National for the excellent "thank you" chocolate bars! Portland members also met at the home of member Terry Grant for a relaxed picnic in her garden and a tour of the studio; thank you, Terry!

 

In September we launched our three-session Critiques Practice. Bonnie Bucknam gave us a review of Jane Dunnewold's critique guidelines, and members brought in some wonderful art quilts for critique. Each artist specified what they would like to learn from the critique, and we focused our comments accordingly. We continued this program in October, and November will be the final session, as we enjoy and critique the 50 small quilts from the SAQA Trunk Show H. In December we will celebrate with a Holiday party, details TBD.

 

We continue to welcome visitors and new members to our group meetings, and to enjoy lunch and social time at a local restaurant following our meetings. Many of our members are working hard on local arrangements for next year's "Fiberlandia": national conference (with Diane Born and Christina Brown coordinating our efforts with those of SAQA National). From time to time we send out State-wide calls for volunteers; we need everybody's help, particularly as we get closer to the time of the conference, so please get in touch and do your part.

 

For more information on what we're up to in Portland, contact Elizabeth Bamberger: elizabethbamberger@gmail.com

Valley-South Members Have Fun!

In September, nine of the Valley-South members had a weekend retreat at SAQA member Vera Rogers' ranch in Southern Oregon. Vera gave us a workshop: You CAN Resist! In her wonderful big studio we played with nine types of resist (potato dextrin, corn, flour, soy wax, water-based...) and went back to our samples over and over with dyes all ready for us to use. In between all this creativity and learning, we pot-lucked some wonderful food, and had a great weekend! We are learning - the more examples we have, the easier it is to see what really "works" and what doesn't work as well. Our next exercise, not due until January, will help us focus on negative space.

 

We (as the "Valley South Art Quilters") are confirmed for another exhibit at Oregon State University's MSU gallery next September, and our theme is "Artistic Intent". One idea we really like is to find a way to have our Valley-South mini-exhibits travel to the other parlor groups in Oregon, as a way of keeping in touch with the other groups and also of getting new and creative ideas to stretch ourselves, as their mini-exhibits will come to us. We're ready to do our part to make this happen!

For more information on what we're up to in the Valley-South region, contact Georgia French: gfrench1946@gmail.com.

Bucknam Exhibits at Union Street Gallery, Chicago Heights

 

Two pieces by Oregon SAQA member Bonnie Bucknam, Crater and Canopy, are at the Union Street Gallery in Chicago Heights, Illinois.  The exhibit, Material Matters, closes October 25.  If you're in the area this week, stop by.

News from Central Oregon

Central Oregon SAQA:

The call for entry for “Blending Poetry and Cloth” was presented to all members in late September. The description and prospectus for this Oregon wide exhibit can be found on the SAQA website under “Membership” and “Call For Entries.” Quilt photos and entries are due in June of 2015. More information will be provided on an ongoing basis.

Georgia French, Jean Wells and Leotie Richards traveled to Ashland to meeting with prospective members for a new SAQA parlor group in the Rogue Valley area. About twenty-three quilt artists attended the meeting. Lynne Goulette has volunteered to lead and organize the meetings.

September, October, November Meetings

September 18 - SAQA Anniversary Trunk Show was presented to the group. We revealed and shared background on our 18” x 40” Mapping – A View from Above Quilts which will go on display at The Stitchin’ Post starting October 24th. The opening reception for this exhibit is on Friday the 24th, Fourth Friday Art Walk in Sisters, Oregon. The quilts will also be on display at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in July of 2015.

October 16th - Open Discussion - The Artist As A Risk Taker, Finding the Warrior Within. We talked about how we can create a safe place for personal growth in quilting and at the same time challenge and elevate our art. Mapping Quilts - Completion Celebration We celebrated the major accomplishment of the completion of our “Mapping – A View From Above” quilts. We broke into small groups in which each artist had a chance to share the experience of creating their quilts. Guidelines were provided for soliciting specific kinds of feedback from the group.

November 20th – Dawn Boone, Executive Director for Atelier 6000 - a print making studio - will lead a discussion on self critiquing and will then provide critiques for 5-6 member’s quilts. There will be a $7 fee for the lecture and $20 for individual critiques. The fees will go to the Atelier 6000 general fund. We will meet at the Atelier 6000 site at 369 SW Scalehouse Court Ste #20 in Bend near the Old Mill at 1pm to 3pm.

There is no meeting in December.

SAQA Oregon Social Media Refresher

Yes, Oregon SAQA uses a number of different social media, but they each work best for different purposes. If you only want to deal with one, the Yahoo group is where essential information about the SAQA Oregon group gets exchanged and files are kept.


- Gerrie Congdon is the moderator of our Yahoo Group, "PDXOregonSAQA"; contact Gerrie at gericon@comcast.net

  - Sherri Culver is the moderator of our Oregon SAQA Facebook site, which we use to share news, art and events, and enjoy socializing; Sherri would love to sign you up if you are a SAQA Oregon member and haven't already joined the Facebook group: sherriculverohio@gmail.com

 - Sidnee Snell has offered to help members who are having technical problems using our communications media: sidnee@snellpete.com

 - Post news at our SAQA Oregon blog: www.saqaoregon blogspot.com. Contact Bonnie Bucknam: bonniebucknam@gmail.com. This site is open to the public for viewing.  SAQA Oregon members should announce an exhibits, an acceptance to an exhibit, a class, etc. The blog is a good way to reach a wide audience and to see what else is going on. The blog also announces local group meetings and exhibits.