I got word this week that this little bit of quilty goodness is on the road for display in another portion of Australia and I realized I hadn’t documented it anywhere yet.
Tara Glastonbury curated and produced a really stunning show called, In Conversation which has been traveling around Down Under for the last six months. She paired up sets of amazing quilters from all over the world who created pieces in conversation with each other.
She also issued a call for mini-quilts that fulfilled the following In Conversation prompt:
Social media gives artists the ability to access ideas, opportunities and peers in a direct and immediate way – leading to connections and collaborations that would not have been possible in the past.
I know the social interaction online isn’t always healthy and as we head into another contentious election in the US this Fall, it will certainly deteriorate. But as the internet and social media have flourished in the last decades, I have found so very many cozy corners online that have held beautiful, supporting, and engaged communities and they have been critically important for me personally as well as artistically.
The information submitted with my entry reads as follows:
Relationships grounded in cross-cultural, cross-ideological, or cross-anything conversations foster both understanding and creativity. The door to human potential opens in that very place of meeting and mingling. Social media makes those relationships possible. Color, quilting, and technique choices all reflect the importance and beauty of that mingling in my life.
And a little bit more of an explanation…
The center of this quilt is a gorgeous fabric by P. Carter Carpin and represents the people and cultures we experience on the internet. The colors and quilting meet, mix, and weave into the middle, resulting in a beautiful riot of pattern and color.
Sometimes we come to online communities from a narrow band of experience, exposure, and beliefs (the teal colors) and sometimes we come from a wider range of experience, exposure, and beliefs (the warm colors). But if we allow it, we can all learn and grow from the conversations available to us in the digital space.
I have found some of my most meaningful relationships, personally and professionally, online and have been enriched beyond measure by those friends and colleagues. Many of the skills I now possess would have been impossible for me to learn without internet resources.
To honor that, I wanted to learn something new with this project. I had never done a binding that matched and extended the piecing of a quilt, so I found some sources online and learned a few ways to go about it.
The effects of our online interactions also don't-or shouldn't-stay in the digital space. The hand quilting represents the changes that extend into our "real" lives.
Without the internet, my participation in this (my first foray into a quilt exhibition) would not have been possible. I’m so glad to be living in this time!