Trip to England, part two

My second stop in England was the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. I was teaching there 2 years ago and decided to go back again because it is really a fabulous show. I had 2 days of visiting before my 2 days of teaching so I had time to look at the quilts and… of course at the vendors. The general exhibit is so well hung, with wide rows on very light carpeting and black backdrop. It really sets off the quilts beautifully particularly since the lighting is quite good. One thing I found rather odd and did not like: each quilt was labeled with its title and its entry number but not the name of the maker. I assume that the goal was to “encourage” visitors to buy the catalogue but I thought it really was stealing each entrant of her/his moment of fame. In my opinion, the name of the maker should be displayed with the quilt even if the statement is kept to the catalogue.
I took a number of photos of my favorite quilts but I will not post them here since I could not request permission from their makers.

The merchants were numerous and very varied. It was possible to purchase just about anything related to quilting, either traditional or contemporary and surface design. I had the surprise to meet again with my friends Margrit and Josef from Hungary. Their business is called Foltvilág KFT. Margrit, a fiber artist and teacher herself, dyes the fabrics and some threads that they sell at shows and they also sell the brand of dye powder they use. Her fabric is cotton but feels like silk. Quite beautiful! You can find them in some major European shows, their next one being the European Patchwork Meeting in Sainte Marie aux Mines (Eastern part of France, close to Germany) in September.

But I think the best feature of the Festival is the group of the galleries showcasing individual artists or special exhibits by various groups. The “galleries” actually have solid walls (probably plywood) painted a very light grey. The signage and lighting are very professional so the quilts really look as if they hung in separate “real” galleries. It is quite impressive. Many of these exhibits were beautiful and very exciting but there is one, which really blew me away: the work of a Swiss artist, Jacqueline Heinz, who now lives in Germany. Her panels are “simple” in composition, usually two or three large areas of fairly solid color (mostly light hand-dyed colors) separated by a thin meandering line of small designs made of wool roving attached to the surface with different quilting than on the rest of the quilt. The large fields of light colors are covered with extremely dense and very interesting and unusual machine quilting, which creates amazing textures. The textures are very obvious because the fabrics are solid. Her elegant quilts brought me a strong sense of balance and peace. It is of course impossible to convey the beauty of these pieces with words and I hope that Jacqueline will soon have a website, where we can see her work.