AK SAQA May 2016 Meeting

We had a great AK SAQA meeting this May.

Diane Melms, Gail Ramsay, Barb Hanson, Beth Blankenship, Krista Fleckenstein, Cat Larrea, Mary Gerkin, Carrie Payne, Amy Meissner, and Maria Shell were present.

SAQA artist and board member Susan Else will be coming to Anchorage at the end of May. If you would like to join a small of artists who will be welcoming her to Anchorage, please contact Cat Larrea for details <cat.larrea@gmail.com > They will be getting together at 7PM on Friday May 27th.

Cat Larrea gave an update on the AK + HI exhibition. We all agreed to the following things-
  • We like the idea of all of the quilts being the size of a USPS flat rate game box or smaller
  • There should be two jurors—one from Hawaii and one from Alaska
  • Maria Shell will be the the AK representive for writing the SAQA grant
  • Amy Meissner will work towards finding an AK juror.
We celebrated Amy Meissner and Diane Melms webinar performances for the SAQA Lightening Talks. The webinar is now archived on the SAQA website and SAQA members can view it by clicking here

Amy Meissner offerend to organize a SAQA members “field trip” to the Alaska State Council on the Arts (ASCA) to speak with Andrea Noble about 1% for Art and public art as well as ASCA’s role as arts advocates. Everyone agreed this was a great idea, and that Amy should move forward with organizing the field trip for this fall.

Susan Joy Share has an upcoming bookbinding workshop at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage. You can find more information about the workshop here

SAQA member Krista Fleckenstein has offered to give AK SAQA members a short workshop this July on block printing and dying. Krista’s new book Beyond Cotton is about these technigues.

Diane Melms showed amazing new work that we all agreed should be kept under wraps for now.

Beth Blankenship shared her recent explorations in 3D work—I wish I had photos to share.

Maria Shell shared news about her recent trip to Fiberart International 2016.  Her piece TRIBE is on exhibition as part of this show.

Cat Larrea shared her SAQA auction piece.

We all admired the front and the label. 

We encouraged all of our members to create an auction piece. You can learn about how to do that by visiting the SAQA website.

Mary Gerken shared the work she created during a workshop with Esterita Austin.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday June 14th. We agreed that a discussion about website platforms would be a great thing to add to that month's agenda.

The July meeting is scheduled for Tuesday July 19th. AK SAQA Nancy Dobson will be joining us.

We hope you will join us for the meetings which are usually (the July meeting is an exception) from 10AM -12PM on the second Tuesday of the month at the Kaladi Brothers on Brayton.

AK SAQA April 2016 Meeting

We welcomed new members Lori Landenberger Krista Fleckenstein, Debbie Evan and Beth Blankenship . WELCOME! 

Members Diane Melms and Amy Meissner shared some hi-lights of the SAQA 2016 ICE Conference in Philadelphia.

There were three AK members who attended the conference—Maria Shell, Diane Melms, and Amy Meissner.

There was great sight seeing. 

Amy and Maria attended the Rep meeting where they learned about other regions and how to improve on their abilities to help our region be sucessful.

Both Amy and Diane presented PK talks which are short presentations lasting 6 minutes and 40 and featuring 20 images. The event was a huge success, and they both were invited to participate in a SAQA Webinar that is now in the SAQA archives

SAQA artist and board member Susan Else will be coming to Anchorage at the end of May. If you would like to join a small group of artists who will be welcoming her to Anchorage, please contact Cat Larrea for details <cat.larrea@gmail.com > They will be getting together at 7PM on Friday, May 27th.

SAQA member Krista Fleckenstein has a new book out called “Beyond Cotton”. If there is interest, Krista would like to offer a surface design workshop exploring some of the techniques in her book. We are hoping to schedule this for early summer.


Our next informal Coffee Talk Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday May 10, 2016 at the Kaladi Brothers on Brayton.