News From Jean, Our Regional Co-Rep

Hello,

Betty and I have been working on establishing regional parlor groups to further art quilting. Oregon is a very diverse state geographically and we know that many of you live in outlying areas but do travel. Check the blog on a regular basis for meeting announcements and know that you are welcome to attend any of these meetings. Please communicate with either Betty bdavisdaggett@gmail.com of Jean jean@stitchinpost.com with any questions or sharing of information.

Central Oregon (from Jean)
Central Oregon was fortunate to have a gallery show, Fabrications, in February at a gallery in Bend. Most of the quilts were from Central Oregon, but there were a few from Portland and Salem as well. The response to the show was overwhelming. Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show was the organizer of the event and plans are in the works to make it an annual event.

Central Oregon SAQA members will be having a quarterly meeting on March 16 in the classroom at The Stitchin' Post. Member, Ruth Ingham, a painter and art quilter, will present a program on how to approach composition. This will be followed by a presentation on creating visual texture on your quilts by Betty Daggett, and then the group will open up for members to share work and Carol Webb will facilitate the "design decisions/critique" portion of the meeting.

Portland Parlor Group (from Betty)
The Portland area has had two parlor meetings, in January at Gerrie Congdon's (gericon@comcast.net) home and in February at Elizabeth Bamberger's (elizabethbamberger@gmail.com). Our next meeting will be at Gerrie's. The monthly meeting of the Portland group will be on March 21, 10am-12pm at Gerrie Congdon's (note that this a change). More details of the meeting can be found on the SAQA Oregon Blogspot. It has been established that is where you can learn about the most recent information about the Portland parlor group.

The Portland group is large and the last two meetings have full of discussion about what we want from the meeting. The ideas are becoming clearer as meet and decide to how manage our meeting and communicate the needs of the members. The third Wednesday of every month will be our meeting day. The meetings will be two hours. The first hour will be open to information on new calls of entry, show and tell of members finished works or work in progress, special topic of discussion agreed upon at the previous meeting or a small presentation by a group member, and making our plan for the next meeting. Critique is important to the group and the last hour will be devoted to critique, using the primary principles of art and the secondary principles of design as our guidelines. We will follow Sandra Sider's outline for critiquing. The critiques will be voluntary and limited in number at each meeting, because of the size of the group. If a member wants a critique at the next meeting, the hostess should be notified and the critiques will be added to the critiques in they order they are received. We will continue to adapt to the needs of the members and evaluate if this concept of the parlor meeting would be better met in smaller groups. It is open and we are very excited about the genuine interest we have in the area and our desire to continue our love for exploring and making fiber/quilt art.

Eugene/Corvallis (mid-valley) (from Georgia)
After watching the Central Oregon group get going, and now with the Portland area group on its way to regular parlor meetings, it's time to find out if there is the same kind of interest in the Eugene/Corvallis area. The two other groups are doing demos, critiques, mutual support for exhibit entry --- anything is possible. Let's find out who in Eugene and its environs want to share mutual interests. Laura Jaszkowski (joyincloth@gmail.com) and Georgia French (gfrench@rosenet.com) will get things started on March 20th at 3pm, at Laura's home. RSVP for directions and so that Laura will know how many to expect. From there it will depend upon what the group wants, how often, where ---- all TBD. All SAQA members are welcome. Hope to see lots of you there!