Meeting of the Crones

“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.” 
― Henry David Thoreau, I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau

      Yesterday, my art quilters group, studioQ, held our monthly meeting at Cabbage Rose, a fabric shop in Fort Worth.  This was our first time to meet in their new location.  When we first organized nearly 10 years ago, there were about 12 of us.  I guess it was our second year that we decided to do a Round Robin...that is a project where someone begins with a central block (the red square in the center bordered by black and more red in this case), then passes the block on to the next person with scarps of the fabric used.  The next person adds more and passes it with the fabric they received and the fabric they added.  This continues until everyone has added something. Our last person decided it was enough so she added embellishments!  And below you see the results! Which was returned yesterday by a newer member who had been enjoying it at her home.
       That first year, we entered it into the Trinity Valley Quilt Guild show in the  group category....the poor little thing looked so pathetic hanging with all these huge traditional quilts!  Nine or so years ago, art quilts were a bit of an oddity! Now all major quilt shows have an Art Quilt category which is quite extensive in some places.  There are even shows with nothing but Art Quilts!

An Early Round Robin

       And we didn't have a name yet either!  Shortly after that we decided we needed a name, by golly!  I was personally fond of being the Creative Crones, but several of our younger members didn't want to called a "Crone" which has, according to the dictionary, two distinct meanings:

1. Derogatory An old woman considered to be ugly; a hag.

2. A woman who is venerated for experience, judgment, and wisdom.

I personally think the numbers should be switched, but there you have it!  So we became studioQ instead....studio in lower case letters/capital Q.  The "Q" doesn't stand for anything in particular...could be anything! But I still use the Creative Crone moniker...(thus the name of my blog) with the emphasis on the number two definition!!!

        Any way, when we met yesterday, one of our focuses was to show our current challenge.  As I think I mentioned in an earlier blog, we have enjoyed doing our Masterpiece Challenge so much we decided to continue it and expand it to not just paintings, but any chosen art form. So last month Michelle gave us Frank Gehry's "Biomuseo", a museum designed by him and opened in 2014 in Panama City, Panama.  I have given you a link to the structure...it has a very interesting mission, etc..

Biomuseo 

From this picture, many of us designed an art quilt with this for inspiration.

My rendition...I doing quite a bit of hand stitching on it so am not quite finished..no binding yet.

Kay's

One of Heather's

One of Michelle's

A group shot of all of them together

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of everyone's individual, but you can see them altogether here.  Our next challenge will not be until January...we are meeting in December but just for the food...nothing serious!!