I’m travelling to England later today – Festival of Quilts in Birmingham: a two day workshop, a lecture on “Working in a Series” and showing about 14 quilts in a gallery/booth: Elusive Beauty, Elizabeth Barton and Dominie Nash.
Come see us!
Dominie and I both find inspiration in unexpected places: I like power plants, and strange sprawling factories with eccentric pipes and gantries shooting out in all directions. I’m also very concerned about the environment and the climate and want to draw attention to what is happening to it.
Dominie finds beauty in the juxtaposition of everyday objects – she plays with relationships of pattern and form.
We’re hoping that after you’ve seen our show, you won’t look at a milk jug, or a decrepit industrial scene in quite the same way!
Travel to new places makes us look!
You know how you can drive to work and not see a thing all the way because the route is so familiar? I’m going to try to really see everything on my trip, I don’t want to slouch down and let it all slide by – let me be inspired by those unusual shapes, colours and relationships!
I also want to seek out art in these new areas: what are the locals up to? Of course I hope to stumble across work by Alice Kettle, Pauline Burbidge, Elizabeth Brimelow and Matthew Harris! Some of my heroes. Well, perhaps not “stumble”! But also I want to see what all the other quilters, textile artists, painters etc are showing.
The third broadening factor about travel is that it gives you a chance to experiment with small studies. Whenever I start to pack for a trip, I don’t think about clothes and shampoo and so on, I first want to know what I’m going to take to “do”. Unlike my friend Anne, who told me she would just “be” on one great trip (and she was, and it was good!)..I’m a doer. Obviously I can’t haul around a great quilt with me, so I always pack a few little bits of fabric, some thread and the permission to just have fun and try out different things.
I’m also looking forward to being broadened by cream teas for which I have a great fondness!!
See you at the Festival!
I will be back blogging on my return early in September.
And, as ever, thank you so much for reading! Elizabeth
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7 comments:
Safe journey; I'm looking forward to attending your lecture!
Ohhhh E- I remember when you were trying to come up with a name for this show - how time goes by! I really think we as artists need to get used to always carrying a camera around with us. Not only to capture those inspirational moments - but also so that we stop taking for granted the beauty that is around us everyday. Have a safe trip - say Hi to Rayna - have fun!
Elizabeth,
I'd love to hear more about how you go about putting together your little travel package of fabrics and threads. How do you choose what to take? Do you set out with a particular quilting experiment in mind? And, of course, I'd love to see what comes out of this endeavor.
I hope the trip the UK was spectacular.
Cheers,
Linda
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