Studio Art Quilter's Association, SAQA for short, has a new call for entries out. The show is titled Guns: A Loaded Conversation. Apparently some SAQA members thought the topic was too controversial. I am not one of those people. Art has always played a role in social movements. Gun safety and gun rights have been a hot top in our society for at least 30 years. This is a timely topic worth exploring through Art. SAQA has 3500 members in 37 countries, so I imagine this show will draw entries from multiple countries and represent multiple perspectives.
SAQA is encouraging artists to blog about the process of creating their piece for this show. I often intend to document my process, but rarely do. You'd think I'd remember how I did something, but I don't. With most of my pieces, I'm inventing as I go, and a few quilts down the road, I can't recall how I held a million little pieces in place before I stitched them, or what, if anything I used for a base fabric. Perhaps this time, with SAQA's encouragement, I actually will document my steps!So, here's the beginning. This is the way most of my quilts begin--a hastily scratched out on a piece of scrap paper that makes no sense to anyone but me. Honestly, sometimes, if the sketch lays around long enough, it doesn't make any sense to me either.
Though this may not look like much now, I am picturing a light, bright center with many buildings--schools, movie theaters, shopping malls, government buildings, churches, mosques, synagogues, restaurants, and bars appliqued in an overlapping manner in the center of the quilt. Surrounding the center I picture silhouettes of all kinds of guns--rifles, automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons, and hand guns appliqued on a dark background, and all pointing toward the buildings that represent our society. My working title for this piece is A Clear and Present Danger.
The show is opened to any SAQA members. Deadline for entry is October 31. All the details are here: SAQA, GUNS: A LOADED CONVERSATION.
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