I finally went to the Voices Plus show while it’s still at the Waterside Arts Centre, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in textiles. The show is in Sale until the 13 October 2012, then travelling on, so check the Quilt Art website for more info. (For those unfamiliar with the Manchester area: Sale is a town, so "in Sale" isn't just a quaint way of saying "on Sale"; the prices aren't marked down)
The work is definitely in the art category, meaning they aren’t quilts to wrap up and keep warm with, but I was impressed by the level of quilting and general textile working skill. It is definitely worth checking out for ideas to apply to less arty quilts. I was especially impressed by Mirjam Pet-Jacob’s quilting technique on The Silence In Between:
It’s like a topographic map, with the quilted valleys pushing up mountains in the batting. The texture looked so inviting, but I was a good girl and didn't touch it.
It was also nice to see this on the back of Summer 2010 by Dirkje Van Der Horst-Beetsma:
Using fabric like that makes me think these really are quilts, and part of that tradition, as well as fine art. The front of the piece has wonderful gentle colours, the patches and stitches remind me of brush strokes in oil paintings. I've put a little set of photos on my Flickr site, if you want to see more.
It's a delightful exhibit. Even though it is definilty just art quilts, there's loads of different things to see and study. Thank you and well done to all who participated and organized!
