AK SAQA DECEMBER 2016 MEETING

For the 2016 December AK SAQA meeting, Amy Meissner invited us to visit her lovely home in Anchorage. We had a great turn out. 

Members in attendance included Cat Larrea, Amy Meissner, Diane Melms, Carrie Payne, Gail Ramsay, Jan Wallace, Beth Blankenship, Bonny Riveria, and Maria Shell . We also had two visitors Rebecca Starry and Jeannie Bench. 

Many of our members had SAQA news to share. Here is what they are up to.

Amy Meissner finished hanging a major public art installation at the Chugiak-Eagle River Library. You can read more about that project on Amy’s blog. She is currently exploring ideas for her 2018 show at the Anchorage Museum. 

Diane Melms has been busy making holiday gifts.

We all agreed that she needs to make a pattern for this funny face that eats pillow food!

Carrie Payne’s art work is featured in the Art Quilting Studio Winter 2017 issue 

And the Sew Somerset Winter 2017 issue. 

Carrie has also agreed to curate a group AK SAQA show for March 2017 at the Girdwood Center for Visual Arts. All AK SAQA members are invited to share their work. Members may submit two pieces for consideration. The work can be brought to the next SAQA meeting which is schedule for Tuesday, January 10, 2017 from 10AM to 12PM at the Kaladi Brothers on Brayton. Or you can contact Carrie via her website to make other arrangements for delivery of work. 

Member Bonny Riveria shared new work and as well as information about her successful solo show in November at J&H Sew and Vac. 

She scheduled to have another solo show at Doriola’s in July. The show will feature new work from Bonny’s series on trees.

We spent a lot of time introducing ourselves along with many tangents about techniques, future work, and history. It was a fabulous meeting.

We hope you will join us in January. We will be meeting on Tuesday, January 10, 2017 from 10AM to 12PM at the Kaladi Brothers on Brayton.  Upcoming meeting will include a presentations by Diane Melms about the opening of Quilts=Art=Quilts, Maria Shell’s recent visit to China and the 2016 China International Patchwork Invitational Tournament, and Amy Meissner will share her experience creating and installing a major piece of public art.

We look forward to seeing you in the new year!

AK SAQA AUGUST 2016 Meeting

We had a great turn out for our August SAQA meeting. In fact, we are on the verge of outgrowing our meeting space!

Kate Beebe, Cat Larrea , Amy Meissner , Diane Melms  Carrie Payne , Faye Stiehm, Maria Shell , Beth Blankenship , Debbie Even, Bonnie Rivera, and Krista Fleckenstein were in attendance.

Debbie Even and Bonnie Rivera are both new members. Welcome!

There was lots of news to share. We are planning on having a complete discussion of social media at our next meeting.  We would like to talk about how AK SAQA can use social media for an assortment of purposes. We would also like to discuss how we as individuals and artist use social media in our lives.

As a teaser for that discussion, here all the Instagram names for the members at the meeting.

Debbie Even @evenstitchers, Krista Fleckenstien @kristafleck, Maria Shell @talesofastitcher, Carrie Payne @believemagic, Diane Melms @dianemelmsartist, Amy Meissner @amymeissnerartist 

If you are on Instagram, please follow your follow SAQA members.  And if you would like to be added to this list, just let Maria Shell know.

The AK SAQA presentation for the Valley Quilter’s Guild in Palmer, Alaska was a great success. You can read all the details of that adventure here.  

Kate Beebe, who was one of the presenters at the Valley Quilter's Guild meeting, said it was a well attended event. SAQA presenters hung dozens of art quilts and the members of the guild were truly interested and inspired.

Carrie Payne shared the details of her current solo show at the Girdwood Center for Visual Arts . 

You can see beautiful images of the 15 new pieces Carrie created for the show on her website , and you can read the SAQA review of the show here .

SAQA member Krista Fleckstein, who is the author of Beyond Cotton, has offered to share her surface design knowledge with our group by offering a half-day workshop.  The workshop will be held at Krista’s home on Thursday, September 15 from 10AM - 2PM. Members will recieve an email with more infromation and an opportunity to sign up

We had a lengthy discussion about what sort of systems we use to apply for art opportunities and document our work. We hope to eventually have a blog post with the resources from that conversation listed here so that all of our members can benefit from that discussion.

The meeting concluded with a fabulous Show and Tell.

New member Bonnie Rivera created an art quilt based on her son’s art work. 

The colors and the craftmanship of the piece were beautiful.

Cat Larrea has been very busy creating some new small landscape quilts composed of bold shapes and incredible palettes.

We had an interesting discussion about how Cat creates lines with fabric, thread, and ink.

Beth Blankenship shared an exquiste beaded bird structure she created.

We all got to hold it which was kind of amazing in of itself.

Diane Melms brought a quilt to celebrate watermelon which we all should be doing right now.

We compared the guilting on Faye Stiehm’s work and Diane Melms and concluded that denser quilting does change the hand of the quilt. 

Great meeting!

Our next gathering is scheduled for Tuesday September 13 from 10AM to 12PM at the Kaladi Brothers on Brayton. We hope to see you there!  < http://kaladi.com/locations_brayton.cfm>

Once Upon...Happily Ever After--New Work by AK SAQA artist Carrie Payne

Alaska SAQA member Carrie Payne currently has a show at the Girdwood Center for Visual Arts in Girdwood, Alaska.

Carrie made 15 new pieces for the show which is called Once Upon…Happily Ever After.

These new pieces explore fairy tales through the media of beautiful textiles, many of which Carrie has created herself.

Carrie Payne is a self-taught mixed media fiber artist and quilter. 

She combines fabric, thread, paper and found objects to create art quilts, fabric books, journals and other stitched creations.  

Her artwork has been featured in publications such as Sew Somerset, Art Quilting Studio, American Quilter Magazine, and Somerset Holidays & Celebrations.  

In addition to making art, Carrie designs art quilt patterns and text print fabrics and teaches classes on showing the world your creativity with fabric and thread. See more of Carrie’s work at on her website Believe Magic. <www.believemagic.com>.  

Each of Carrie’s art quilts is an adventure in happiness.

The show is up through the end of August, we hope you will take the time to see Carrie’s new work in person!

Valley Quilter’s Guild Presentation

AK SAQA members Kate Beebe and Gail Ramsey <> traveled to the Palmer, Alaska on Thursday August 4th to give a presentation to the Valley Quilter’s Guild. The Valley Quilters Guild, Inc. was formed in 1985 to promote quilting in the Matanuska Valley. They currently have a membership of over 200 quilters. 

Kate and Gail shared dozens of art quilts with more than 50 quild members.

Many of the guild members took the time to enjoy each individually.

Kate shared her experience of moving from being a traditional quilter working with patterns to being an artist who explores many different techniques in her work.

Gail discussed aspects of being a professional artist.

It appears everyone had a great time learning about SAQA, art quilts, and how to make the leap towards designing original quilt compositions.

If you are interested in learning more about SAQA and art quilting, please join us for our next meeting which is scheduled for Tuesday September 13th from 10AM -12PM at the Kaladi Brothers on Brayton.

AK SAQA July 2016 Meeting

We had a great turn out for our July meeting. 

Kate Beebe, Mary Gerken, Barb Hanson, Cat Larrea, Amy Meissner, Diane Melms, Carrie Payne , Gail Ramsay, Faye Steihm, Jan Wallace, Nancy Dobson  (visiting from Colorado) were in attendance.

Many of our members had SAQA news to report. Here is what they are up to.

Amy Meissner is still working on making contact with Andrea Noble at the Alaska State Council on the Arts about scheduling a field trip to thier office to learn more about 1% for Public Art. 

Diane Melms is now a member of SAQA Education Committee and is in charge of creating a SAQA Pinterest board featuring machine stitching. One of the artists she has found is Harriet Riddell, who has a portable/solar powered sewing machine, which she sets up and uses for her “performance sewing.” You can read more about her here .

Diane also recommended the many webinars now available on the SAQA site, the newest of which is “Working in a Series.” 

Gail Ramsay, Mary Gerkin and Kate Beebe are presenting at the Valley Quilter's Guild in Palmer, Alaska on Aug. 4. Several members brought quilts for the team to share with the Valley Quilter's Guild. The selection of quilts included examples of an array of art quilts. 

Cat Larrea talked about the evening she hosted at her home with SAQA board member Susan Else as well as new work. Cat let everyone know that the  AK + HI exhibition is still moving forward, but at a slow pace.

Jan attended Susan’s workshop in Kenai and gave an account of the success of that experience and she also shared new work.

Barb Hanson had a great new piece to share.

And Kate Bebee shares a fusible piece that she has been working on.

There was an insightful discussion about the merits of juried exhibitions and how best to go about showing our work. In fact, we are going to continue the discussion at the August Meeting which is scheduled for Tuesday August 9th from ten to noon at the Kaladi Brothers on Brayton.

We hope to see you there with new work and ideas about where to show it.

PS—Krista Fleckenstein <http://www.spottedstone.com/> wasn’t in attendance, but is interested in having a fall gathering and informal workshop at her home in a few months.

AK SAQA June 2016 Meeting

The AK SAQA June meeting was small and informal. It featured great conversations and art work. 

Gail Ramsey, Mary Gerken, Beth Blankenship, Carrie Payne and Diane Melms were in attendance.  

Gail brought a big "sea life" piece she is working on. It is fantastic, and we encouraged her to get it done and submit it to one of the upcoming shows outside.  

Keri brought two magazines she has been recently published in and lots of samples of her work, and we talked about her marketing strategies pricing etc. 

Diane Melms has joined the SAQA Education Committee. She also brought examples of handwork from the summer.

The July meeting is scheduled for Tuesday July 19th from 10AM -12PM. AK SAQA member Nancy Dobson will be joining us.

We hope you will join us for the meetings which are usually (July meeting is an exception) from 10AM -12PM on the second Tuesday of the month at the Kaladi Brothers on Brayton. < http://kaladi.com/locations_brayton.cfm>

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.