International Quilt Festival 2011 in Long Beach

Last Friday was a totally fun day!

The IQF show in Long Beach is HUGE! The day passed in a blur, but I did get some time to see some great art quilts.

This cool 3-d piece really grabbed my attention right away.

It’s by Felisa Lyons, from La Habra Heights in California, and I couldn’t find any hint of a blog or website of hers.

A lot of the special exhibits had “no photography” rules. One great one was curated by Leslie Tucker Jenison and  Jamie Fingal. It was a really well put together exhibit, each quilt was the same dimensions, which brought some real continuity to the exhibit, but each artist interpreted the theme so differently, so it was really interesting!

The other really cool exhibit was a SAQA installation created by 14 different art quilters called Sightlines. This link takes you to info about the installation and the artists, and here  is a picture of all the quilts, aligned so that there is one sight line running horizontally through all of them. I purchased the book that accompanies this collaborative piece so I could take it all in in my own sweet time. The hustle and bustle of a busy exhibit floor when I had to keep an eye on the time to make sure and get to my teaching blocks on time was not conducive to giving this huge piece justice!

I was happy to see some beautiful quilts by a couple of quilt artists whose blogs I follow,  Deb Boschert, and Cynthia St. Charles. In the same bay was a really cool quilt Shulamit Ron, an artist who was new to me, but her work was visually very arresting and I was happy to see she has a website so I could get to know her work more.

Of course, I had a couple of jobs to do there! 🙂 1st up was teaching my “Sketching with Scissors” class. All the ladies who took it had a blast! I didn’t get a chance to know their names, but had fun chatting with the 2 ladies in the bottom picture, who are here from Australia and doing a grand tour extraordinaire of the whole US!

I ended the day in open studios. I decided to spend my time doing some botanical sketching on pillow covers and going green totes, I actually got some things finished and had a great time talking to people!

Overall, it was an exhilarating, exhausting day!

3 Responses

  1. Firstly, thanks for the quilts you were able to show.

    I like to buy cataloge books when I go to exhibitions.

    I am going to a Quilt Fair tomorrow; I know there will be someone there promoting tours from Australia to USA (including Houston Quilt Show); I have a friend who went last year so maybe, one day …

  2. I’m so glad to hear that you enjoyed seeing my quilts, Candy! It looks like you had a great time at MIU and Open Studios. I always love the vibe in the Quilting Arts/CPS zone!