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Dear All,
The next meeting will be held on Friday 30 May 9 am at Odette's home, 83 Jan Hofmeyr Road, Westville Our first Fibreworks meeting for 2014 was on 24 January 2014 at the Tatham Gallery in Pietermaritzburg. Present: Rosalie Dace, Leonie Malherbe, Jeanette Gilks, Helga Beaumont, Annette McMaster, Margaret Ruxton, Odette Tolksdorf, Jutta Faulds, Sue Akerman, Gillian Gerhart, Hermine Spies, Jean Powell, Sue Physick and Carolyn Zelenka. Apologies: Lynette Douglas, Cathy Knox, Cornelia Robinson, Margie Letts, Corina Lemmer, Dana Biddle. Exhibitions: A Fibreworks VIII 2014. National Members' Exhibition Sadly, we were not accepted as main exhibitors for the the Grahamstown Festival 2014. We were not prepared to participate in the fringe events/exhibitions as there would have been too much work involved for our Eastern Cape members. I would like to thank Cathy Knox for all the sterling work she did in preparation for the possible participation in this show. She put aside much of her personal time and energy to attend to this, and time as we all know, is much more valuable than money. Fibreworks VIII will, nevertheless, have two exhibition venues this year. The first will be at the IQC Africa Exhibition in Johannesburg in July, and the second at artSpace in Durban. 1. IQCAfrica Exhibition 2014 in Johannesburg. 24 - 26 July 2014 Please take note of the details relating to the JHB exhibition:
http://www.iqcafrica.com/ Please note there are other exhibitions planned for the IQC Africa Exhibition this year. In addition to the Fibreworks VIII show, there is the is the Mandela exhibition co-ordinated by Jenny Hearn. Contact her for more details at kabewhy@iafrica.com, tel. no. 011 7836321. Check the web site for the Challenge details (there is prize money involved). There is also a 3D Sculptue Fibre exhibition. Dana has already received some interesting entries! The delivery details are at the head of the letter. As you can see, the show in Johannesburg is growing! It is enlarging its premises, and will have workshops running from 23 - 27 July. 2 artSpace, Durban 29 September - 11 October 2014 The second leg of Fibreworks VIII will correspond with our AGM dates of 10 October 2014. After the JHB show at the IQC Africa exhibition, the work will be stored with Dana who is happy to look after the work till it's time to ship it to Durban. B THREADS - Celebrating Jutta Faulds Congratulations to everyone who is taking part in Jutta's wonderful exhibition at the Tatham! On Friday, after the meeting, we had a walkabout in the gallery and the Fibreworks members present shared some of our thoughts and feelings with members of the public. The gallery has kindly given each participant a CD on the works featured on the show and I believe that they will be sent out quite soon to all participants. C Durban National Quilt Festival 2015 We will be exhibiting at the Durban National Quilt Festival in 2015 at Kearsney College. The theme for the National Show is Creative Energy. Here is a letter from Phil Fischer asking Fibreworkers to donate a piece to the Durban Quilt Festival: Dear Fibreworks Members 2015 is the turn of Kwa Zulu Natal Quilters Guild to host the National Quilt Festival. As you are aware to host an event like this requires a lot of finance. In order to help with raising funds, the Festival is holding a Tombolo during the actual Show. There is a call out for all quilters to make and donate A4 quilts which we are calling Luscious Little Layering's. During the Festival visitors/delegates will be able to buy a ticket in the Tombolo and certain ticket numbers will win them a Luscious Little Layering (LLL). To add excitement and interest to the event we are asking our top South African Quilters and Fibrework Artists to make and donate one A4 piece to the Festival. These works will be put in an envelope and placed randomly amongst the other LLL's. We would be grateful if the Fibrework members would take up our request and produce and donate A4 pieces to the Festival. We have a blog under the name lusciouslittlelayerings.blogspot.com where you can find out more info about the LLL's and view some of the pieces that have been made to date. The 'special' A4's which we are requesting will not be disclosed until they have been won. My details are below and if you contact me I will make the necessary arrangements to collect any LLL's. Regards Phil (Fisher) "Phill Fisher" Other Galleries There was a discussion amongst the members about how many of us exhibit on our own, and whether we should be in more art galleries. Jutta and Hermine Spies have offered to look into Art Galleries and venues available to Fibreworks. Odette Tolksdorf is liaising with Dr Elbé Coetsee of the MOGALAKWENA Gallery in Cape Town regarding Fibreworks exhibiting there at some stage. This is a prestigious, fibre-friendly gallery. Perhaps a good venue for Fibreworks IX? She will keep me posted. Thanks Odette. www.mogalakwena.com www.researchlimpopo.com Quilt Inspirations: Colorful and Creative Designs for Traditional, Contemporary and Art Quilt: Recently Jenny Hearn sent this: Calling all quilters and quilt artists! Do you design with quilt blocks or make small, dynamic art quilts that would inspire others? We want to see your work for possible publication! Quarry Books is publishing 1000 Quilt Inspirations: Colorful and Creative Designs for Traditional, Contemporary and Art Quilts in book format, for which we invite you to submit images via this link: http://submissions.rockpaperink.com/1000-quilt-inspirations/ We seek your interpretations of old favorites as well as original designs by you. Sandra Sider, quilt curator and artist, will select the winning designs. There is no entry fee or limit on the number of submissions you may send. DEADLINE: Feb. 15, 2014. Achievements of Members:
Both entered the SPI National Portrait Award 2013. Their works reached the top 100! Here is an e mail from Annette regarding her entries: The first reference was to a portrait (machine embroidered) that I had done about my paternal great -grandparents. My mother had torn the original photographs in to pieces, because she felt that "their eyes are following me" where they hung on the wall . The other reference is to stitched piece about a little girl that tried to save her grandfather from a burning house. In the process she got badly burnt. And now email from the competition organizers: Dear Annette Thank you so much for entering the SPI National Portrait Award 2013. Your work, "Skin as a memory" was in the top 100 chosen by the judges this year, which in itself is a great achievement, as there were 1783 entries. Congratulations! We have received confirmation from SPI, our sponsor, that they will sponsor the award again in 2015. For SPI National Portrait Award 2015, we will ask the judges to choose 200 works of which the first 40+ works will be shown at Rust-en-Vrede Gallery and the rest at 4 different venues around Cape Town. Each venue will have its own opening within the span of a week after the gala opening at Rust-en-Vrede, enabling people to see all 200 works. We hope that you will enter the competition again in 2015. Kind regards, Monica, Hamlin & Nina The Rust-en-Vrede team (P.S. we, the team, REALLY loved "Burn")
Sue Akerman, Bruce Attwood and Gill Gerhardt will be opening our second Fusion exhibition on the 2nd February 2014 at isART in Franschoek. We have completed several smaller pieces to add to the collection, just enough variation and newness to keep the exhibition fresh for anyone popping in for another look. Thereafter our next exhibition will be at Oliewenhuis, Bloemfontein in 2015. After the Tatham exhibition in 2012/2013 and the very welcome interest and support from our friends and peers, we decided to test the waters as such and try to find possible venues outside of our comfort zones. For all three of us this was a necessary step in enabling ourselves to keep motivated and excited about any future pieces that we committed to. Our learning curve has been phenomenal! A HUGE lesson in how to deal with rejection. How to face it, how to integrate it, and how to let it go. For anyone out there timidly wondering whether to submit certain works or not, what we have learnt by the end of 2013 - is take rejection with a pinch of salt. Believe in your own work and just keep on knocking on doors. Somewhere in the multitude of " thanks but, no thanks ", there is someone who gets your work, who finds resonance and conversation with its idea, abstract and completion and will want to take a closer look at its essence. As Mark Twain so succinctly put it " We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore" Wishing all Fibreworks members a courageous 2014 Sue Akerman, Bruce Attwood and Gill Gerhardt Thanks Gillian for this lively report on your successes!
Margaret has work for sale in the Trent Read Gallery in Knysna. Well done Margaret!
Rosalie is off on her travels again, to Australia and America teaching. Rosalie has been selected as one of the jurors at Quilt National this year. We are very proud of you Rosalie. Web site This is up to date Please update your details and get them to Helga by 30 May so we can keep the web site current. Subs Please pay your subs as they are used in the running of Fibreworks. The bank details are at the top of each newsletter and the amount is R150. Please contact Kathy Harmer Fox, our new Treasurer, if you want to check on your subs. Kathy's email address kathryn.kathy@telkomsa.net Best Jeanette Jeanette |