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Dear ALL
Dear All, Dates to diarize: " 5th November - 18 December. Opening of Double Vision. Cape Town. More on this later " 30 November - entry form for Fibreworks IX at Fynarts Festival. More on this later. " Thursday 14 January to Thursday 21 January Breakaway to Kathy Harmer Fox' East London Studio. More on this later " 1 May Entry form for Major Minors VI to Dana Biddle. More on this later " Deadline for submitting art works to Fynarts Festival in Hermanus. Details in next newsletter. " 20 May 2016. Submission deadline for Major Minors art works to Dana Biddle in Heidelberg, 17 Pepperboom street. Her email address is dana@colourspun.com " 3- 5 June 2016. Major Minors V Exhibition. Intercraft Fair, Emperor's Palace in Johannesburg. More on this later " 10th - 19th June 2016 Hermanus Fynarts Festival. See below for more information. " Opening 30 August 6 pm GFI Gallery Opening of Fibreworks IX . www.gfiartgallery.com. See below. " 30 August to 18 September Fibreworks IX at GFI Gallery in Port Elizabeth Our fourth meeting for the year will be held in Pietermartizburg on Thursday 17 December at 10.30 am at Tea on 23, Carbis Road. Our AGM - 24 October. Present: J. Gilks, O. Tolksdorf, H. Beaumont, A McMaster, S. Physick, J Faulds, L Malherbe Apologies: R.Dace, C. Lemmer, J. Hearn, K. Tedder, K. Arbeter, H. Viles, S. Akerman, H. Coleman, G. Gerhardt Jeanette welcomed all at the meeting, and the Pietermaritzburg members in particular. We have a new member, Sorajani Naidoo and we welcome her to Fibreworks. We hope she will enjoy the journey. " Finances: We have R21 973.91 in the bank. Below is a breakdown of the costs to Fibreworks during the last year. You will note that we made R2534.38 in 2015. PS More people paid subs at the AGM so we are in credit for R4034.38. Subs. These are now due. Please pay R150 into the Fibreworks account. The banking details are at the top of the newsletter. "Fibreworks IX 2016 sees the launch of Fibreworks IX. We have been invited by Dal Botha of Hermanus Fynarts to exhibit in Hermanus next year. The theme of the Festival is 'The Art of Thread' but this theme does not affect us. They are also combining French food and shows during the festival. We need a commitment now to participate as Dal has a brochure to prepare with your details - a short bio and a photo of a work of yours. The photo obviously is not necessarily the one of the work that you will be submitting, but is to advertise your work in the brochure. Please respond by 30 November so we get an idea of commitment by emailing Helga@adoptimise.com The venue has ladies on duty to keep an eye, but you will be responsible for your own insurance. The entry fee is R120 per work. This will be for miscellaneous costs which include moving the works from gallery to gallery and returning your work back to you. Your only other cost will be sending your work to Hermanus in May. The gallery can take 40 works depending on size - no work to be bigger than 240 wide and 250 high. Dal is very keen on 3d and wearable art! So if you have wearable art, please enter it even if it has been seen before. The works will then be exhibited in Port Elizabeth. Marilyn Pretorius has organized a wonderful gallery called the GFI and the Opening will be on Tuesday the 30th of August at 6pm. The work will be showcased until 18 September. www.gfiartgallery.com. The entry costs will also go towards the costs on opening night. "Major Minors VI at the Intercraft Fair 2016. Johannesburg Major Minors V will be exhibited at the Intercraft Fair which will be held at Emperor's Palace in Johannesburg. We have been invited to participate and decided to have a Major Minors show there. Please note the dates: 3 - 5 June 2016. New works and old ones are welcome. We are considering new ways of exhibiting the work and will keep you posted. There will be other quilt shows exhibited at Emperor's Palace. These include the South African Guild's Travelling exhibition and also Patchwork Europe. Discussions at the AGM We had a round table discussion during the meeting and everybody got a chance to bring up something they want to discuss. Kim Tedder wants more work on the web site, so please send Helga additional images of your work. You have until April to get them to Helga for updating on the web site. Jutta read a quote from Ed Rossbach pertaining to where we are as Fibreworkers! The article prompted a long and stimulating discussion on the nature of art and some contemporary art practices. Here is the article: "Certain handweavers stopped thinking of themselves as craftsmen or designers and began to regards themselves as artists using fiber for individual expression. They were unwilling to be limited by a single method such as weaving, or by a piece of equipment such as a loom, or by a kind of product such as furnishing fabric. They insisted upon using fiber in any traditional or untraditional way for their own expressive purposes. Their textiles were to be self-sufficient, not conforming to utilitarian needs, color schemes, architectural spaces, or any other extrinsic conditions. As clearly as possible the work of these weavers declared itself to be one-of-a-kind, nonutilitarian, non-decorative - not a hobby activity and not a reconstruction from the past. In what seemed outrageous fashion, the woven pieces often violated all accepted standards of craftsmanship and tastefulness which had come to characterize good handwoven fabrics. These artists in fiber - these 'fibreworkers' - reacted against the narrowness of previous work in handweaving. They started to explore the entire fiber spectrum, from the most prestigious to the most humble, from tapestry through rope-making. A fibreworker was free to work in many directions, to turn from one method to another for whatever suited his expression. He could make lace or felt or barkcloth or cardweaving or paper". Thanks Jutta for this good article! Anette recommended a TV programme on Bloomberg TV Channel 411, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening. This is a half-hour documentary on living artists from around the world. Retreat at Kathy Harmer Fox in East London We are still considering the breakaway at Kathy Harmer Fox's home in East London, from 14 - 21 January 2016. Please contact Helga if you are keen to join in. Maybe Kulula will fly to East London so SAA don't have the monopoly that they presently have! Or maybe we should consider going in June so we can go on to Hermanus/PE. Feed back please. Achievements of members: "Odette Tolksdorf and Sally Scott were invited to exhibit their work at Mogalakwena Gallery at 3 Church Street, Cape Town. Their exhibition, Double Vision, opened on Thursday 5 November to great acclaim and you have until 18 December to view it. Well done Odette and Sally. Mogalakwena Gallery: 021 424 7488 / 083 460 6460; www.mogalakwena.com "News from Rosalie: Hi Helga, Jeanette and FW Friends Thank you for the Fibreworks AGM notice, and please accept my apologies. I will not be able to attend as I am still traveling and teaching and will miss you all. So of course I am looking forward to the reportback / newsletter afterwards. At the moment I am in Greenville NY, having been in Oregon and Montana. Next week I go to a friend in Florida for a few days, then back out west for the last stint of teaching before heading home again in mid- November. I love being here (even though the temperature was 22F yesterday when I got up!) but I miss home terribly and am dying to see you all. Love to all, Rosalie. P.S On Saturday I went to the N Y Wool and Fiber Show in Rhinebeck. The show was good but the whole of NY plus all their friends and relations were there, along with their babies in vast outsize strollers. Do these vehicles have to be the size of a small car? We saw loads of different yarns of every sort of yarn producing animal. News from Celia: Hi All, Hope you are well. I regret not being able to see everyone before leaving SA. After all the visa problems it was finally our wedding day in Antwerp on the 10th Oct - last Saturday. We were happy that my son, Kai was able to be here because he is already in Paris for his Barclays Atellier Award artist's residency at the Cite. Both him and my daugter Nadja (who lives in London) came by train for the weekend. Attached are the first photos of the wedding. These are from Kai - still waiting for the rest. Fortunately Nadja and (her boyfriend) Carl and Kai are excellent in photography due to their work. The wedding dress was by a friend of mine in Pretoria who owns an art gallery and fashion shop and she arranged for her designer to make the coat-dress. I swapped the dress for artworks because the price was way beyond my limited budget. It was a cold day, so I was pleased about the lined coat which could hide my spencer as well. Kris' sister sent him the Nelson Mandela shirt as a gift. Altough the interwoven glazed cotton fabric is rather special I was totally shocked at the price of those shirts! All went quite well - it was a lovely and informal, unconventional ceremony in a beautiful old fashioned room in the city hall conducted by two females - really suited our sensibility. We even had our Chinese horoscope read to us in an amusing way and we had to say if we agreed with the descriptions. I am a dog and he is a rat. Kris made some witty remarks inbetween especially when we were told that children would bless our union which of course added to the fun. Nadja and I did not have our ID docs or Passports with us and the wedding could have been cancelled - we were not told beforehand. Fortunately they rememberd that there was a photocopy of mine in their files. A friend of Kris stepped in for Nadja as witness which was a bit of an anti climax because we had to give them all her details months ago. Beaurocracy! As a Wedding present ZoĆ", Kris' eldest daughter paid for sparkling wine for the 25 guests at a samll restaurant down the road and then Nadja took our new little family to lunch in the city. I enjoy living here even though it is freezing and it is difficult to get out of bed in the mornings and I miss my garden. There are so many wonderful exhibitions which we can enjoy together because he is a Prof in Art. at the Royal Academy here. On Saturday there was an art book fair at the University - 5 halls of art books - pity there were very few handmade artist's books. Also an exhibition of 600 shoes in the Museum of Fashion which started on Sunday - I will certainly not miss that one, will try to go next weekend. The feeling of safety is so special to me here, and being able to go by tram anywhere and not feel nervous about travelling at night. However no country in Europe is without problems these days, there are many 'refugees' especially Moroccans in our neighbourhood, but they are generally speaking peaceful people, pity about the few religious fanatics in the world. All the best, Celia " Finally, here below is a letter that Marilyn Pretorius wrote. As many of you are teachers, we feel it important to communicate this information that is pertinent to all future South African Quilt Festivals: Dear Teachers, The Dias Quilters' Guild will host the 19th National Quilt Festival in Port Elizabeth in July 2017. Advertisements for Quilt Teachers to submit applications to teach at Siyadala - We Create will go out soon. Applications will most likely have to be submitted by middle January 2016. The South African Quilters' Guild formed a newly established Teachers Forum. The objective is that all South African Quilt Teachers must register with SAQG as Quilt Teachers which can be done in two ways - accreditation for those who successfully completed the Teachers Accreditation Course in 2014 or applying for a "Recommended Status" by established teachers without doing the Accreditation Course. Paul Schutte, Odette Tolksdorf, Marline Turner, Sue Prins, Rosalie Dace, Grace Nobili and myself applied for the Recommended Status by submitting our CV's and teaching portfolio's to SAQG after which we were endorsed by SAQG as a Recommended Teacher. We all received our Teachers' badges at the Biennial General Meeting at the recent National Quilt Festival in Botha's Hill. SAQG made a new festival rule that as from 2017 all South African Teachers teaching at Festivals, must be registered as a Teacher by SAQG. This was widely published in all the Regional Guild Newsletters and Teachers were asked to comply. This is the final notice to urge you to please complete the documents in the attachment (contact Helga for the forms) and submit it to SAQG to receive your "Recommended Teacher" status. If you are not an Accredited or Recommended Teacher, your application to teach in Port Elizabeth will unfortunately not be considered which will be very sad as it will be a loss of your expertise. If you received this letter in error, please forgive me as I worked from the list of teachers published on the SAQG website www.quiltsouthafrica.co.za. If you are already registered and your name is not listed on the website, please advise Sue Prins at sjprins@mweb.co.za to update the list. Hope to hear from you very soon with the good news that you have sent in your application to SAQG. Should you know of any other Teacher who I missed because I do not have an email address, please forward this email to her. Kind regards. Marilyn Chairlady 2017 Siyadala - We Create National Quilt Festival Tel: 041 3671634 Cell: 0847909205 Email: maripre@mweb.co.za, Blog: http://marilynpretoriusquilter.blogspot.com All the best, Jeanette and The Team. |