SAQA : 'Made in Europe' : Sabi Westoby
I joined Studio Art Quilts Associates last year to keep in touch with the wider world of art quilts and to see the possibilities of entering work in international exhibitions. In August I saw the call for entries for "Made in Europe" but it was some months before I decided to enter a quilt.
Inspiration struck me at the end of November - I would make a quilt based on my journal quilts for 2015 on the theme of the concrete brutalist archictecture of the Southbank. However, I had to work quickly!
A photograph of the National Theatre was the source of my inspiration. I printed it out to scale (120cm x 70cm) and then started creating the fabrics for the piece. White cotton was monoprinted using a Gelli plate, one of my favourite techniques. I cut out pattern pieces corresponding to the image, which were then fused onto the background fabric. Extra texture and colour was applied with paintsticks and the whole piece was machine quilted. The last stitches went in on Christmas Eve - I had to finish it by then as I had been using the dining table to work on and Christmas lunch and quilts are incompatible!
I submitted my entry online with photographs and was delighted to learn that it had been accepted. So, Southbank 13 will be shown in Daytona Beach, FL, Lancaster, PA, Paducah, KY and Grand Rapids, MI.
There are some more photographs on the News page of my website, which can be accessed with this link - www.sabiwestoby.com/news.html - and the journal quilts that were the basis for this work can be seen with this one - www.sabiwestoby.com/2015.html
I joined Studio Art Quilts Associates last year to keep in touch with the wider world of art quilts and to see the possibilities of entering work in international exhibitions. In August I saw the call for entries for "Made in Europe" but it was some months before I decided to enter a quilt.
Inspiration struck me at the end of November - I would make a quilt based on my journal quilts for 2015 on the theme of the concrete brutalist archictecture of the Southbank. However, I had to work quickly!
A photograph of the National Theatre was the source of my inspiration. I printed it out to scale (120cm x 70cm) and then started creating the fabrics for the piece. White cotton was monoprinted using a Gelli plate, one of my favourite techniques. I cut out pattern pieces corresponding to the image, which were then fused onto the background fabric. Extra texture and colour was applied with paintsticks and the whole piece was machine quilted. The last stitches went in on Christmas Eve - I had to finish it by then as I had been using the dining table to work on and Christmas lunch and quilts are incompatible!
I submitted my entry online with photographs and was delighted to learn that it had been accepted. So, Southbank 13 will be shown in Daytona Beach, FL, Lancaster, PA, Paducah, KY and Grand Rapids, MI.
There are some more photographs on the News page of my website, which can be accessed with this link - www.sabiwestoby.com/news.html - and the journal quilts that were the basis for this work can be seen with this one - www.sabiwestoby.com/2015.html
