“The Contact: Headwaters” selected for SAQA’s newest Juried Artist Showcase

I am pleased that my quilt The Contact: Headwaters, 2016, 84″ x 50″ was one of 24 quilts chosen recently by curator Barbara Danzi in the newest Juried Artist Showcase “Where Are We Going?” curated by Barbara Danzi.

See the other quilts and more about the curator here.

Curator Statement

Maps are an essential graphic tool which enable us to see where we are and where we are going. That sense of place is a critical part of belonging and feeling comfortable where we are.

I curated this collection of quilts made by SAQA Juried Artist Members using the criteria that the quilt has the essence of a map. About half of the artists expressly stated that their quilt is a map, and the other quilts appear to have a map sensibility to my viewing eyes.

Some of these quilts depict the whole world, and we feel tiny on that scale. Some depict a local river or a neighborhood, something familiar to those who live nearby. And some show just a tiny corner of the artist’s world, a fence or city block, and on that scale we know we are home.

I appreciate Barbara’s sensitivity to art that references maps. I love maps too! Did a lot of cartography for my Master’s Degree in Geography years ago. This is an abstraction, but also very representative of a place we walk by high in the Sierra in CA, above the tree line on Tioga Pass. I worked carefully from my photos to get the shapes as they are, in early summer before the snowmelt dries up and most of the plants die back. The vegetation mostly covers a geologic contact of white and dark rock where precious minerals are sometimes found, near some old gold (failed) mines, one of which is still in my family.
Headwaters is now in the collection of the Nevada Museum of Art, a great showcase for art if you get over there.