Artists' Garden

Our group quilt was juried into IQA's World of Beauty. It is always such an honor to be chosen to exhibit at this incredible show. Each Oct. about 65,000 people travel from all over the world to see an amazing exhibit of quilts, take classes from world renowned teachers in all disciplines and shop. For those of you who have never been, we're talking the entire convention center in Houston, TX is full, all levels of the building! For those of us who put ourselves in that precarious spot of submitting a piece for the show and wondering if we've managed to make a piece that attracts the jurist(s), it's a long wait from submission to getting the "envelope". (now an email)

How we got here. In May of 2010 I took my mom on a "road trip" to visit Frances Holliday Alford in Grafton, VT. Since my mom is a Master Gardener we decided to visit Longwood Gardens in PA. I decided to take photos of flowers that represented my art quilt group friends. So driven by the idea that was in my mind that on the return trip home from visiting Frances, we detoured back to the Gardens for another round of photos.

The Task. Each artist was given a selection of photos and was asked to interpret it in their style or even try something new. My only parameters were the size of the block and that each piece had to be finished.

In my mind's eye I was seeing individual flowers (person) beautiful alone but together supported by the trellis (each other) accomplishing and making an incredible garden (art).

Artists involved:

Top L-R Connie Hudson (West Lake Hills), Cindy Henneke (Independence) Annie Smith (The Woodlands)

Middle L-R: Francis Holliday Alford (Grafton, VT & Austin), Leslie Jenison (San Antonio), Sherri Lipley McCauley (Lakeway)

Bottom L-R: Kathy York (Austin), Barbara Forrister (Austin), Suzan Engler (Panorama Village)

Frances Holliday Alford

Barb Forrister

Connie Hudson

Leslie Jenison

Sherri McCauley

Kathy York

Suzan Engler - Textile Artist

http://www.thewpstudio.com Annie Smith