SAQA Benefit Auction

The SAQA Benefit Auction has been taking place the past couple weeks. You may recall I donated one of my Ramshackle pieces last year, which was displayed and sold in Houston.
Today the section with my donation for 2014 goes up for auction. I put together a little explanation about the piece for the SAQA Europe and Middle East blog, so I decided to also post the info here.

Ramshackled Houses

My piece for the SAQA Benefit Auction is a continuation of my ‘Ramshackle’ series in which I have been exploring Neighbourhood. I have been using houses with a sketchy look to develop the character of a particular neighbourhood.

Past works in this series have explored proximity and positioning of houses. I found I could show estrangement or togetherness, depending on the lean of the houses and the placement of ‘accessories’ like a path or smoke from the chimney.

Along with these ideas, I am exploring colour. Does the fabric used as background contribute to the mood or relationship of the neighbours? For instance, in Ramshackled Houses, I haven’t added paths, but I think the green gives a pastoral feel and a sense of companionship.

To see some of the other pieces in this series, you can click on the label "Ramshackle" below this post.


Making the work -

I seldom sketch before working, choosing rather to develop the ideas in my head and then work them out in fabric. But for my ‘Ramshackle’ series I make a little sketch of what I have in mind. It helps me get a better feel of the positioning of the houses.

sketch

To make the Ramshackled Houses I used printed cotton fabrics. The top layer was fused using Misty Fuse before cutting the shapes and positioning them over a dark fabric.

When everything was arranged to my satisfaction, I fused the pieces into place. After this was the rest of the quilt layers, securing the pieces with straight stitches along edges, further quilting through the layers, and lastly the binding.

And the finished Ramshackled Houses piece I sent to SAQA for the Benefit Auction.

This quilt will be up for auction in section 3 of the Benefit Auction, which begins today.You can also follow links there to see what work was donated for Section 1 and 2 and the work which will be displayed for sale at the IQF show in Houston.

If you would like to see more of the work made by members of the Europe and Middle East region, you can go to our region blog.

I am not exactly one for slogans and dunning for money, but this is what SAQA has been adding to their notices about the donation pieces.

Help support SAQA, and at the same time build your art quilt collection by bidding often!
(Or my version: Just go look at it!)