Art Quilt Critique

On Monday of this week, I spent an hour participating in a critique of art quilts put on by SAQA (Studio Art Quilts Associates) of which I am a member. Along with two other Artists, Lorna Morck who lives in Los Alamos, California (http://www.fibervisionaries.com/lorna-morck.html) and Carolina Oneto who lives in Sao Paolo, Brazil  ( https://www.instagram.com/carolina_oneto/). The moderator for the Critique was Vicki Conley, also a SAQA member, from Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico and the woman doing the Critiques was Dr. Sandra Sider  an American quilt artist, author, and curator. She holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, specializing in Renaissance studies. She also holds an M.A. in art history from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts and she lives in The Bronx, New York.

We met all together online and each critique was recorded and will be available on the SAQA website for members to view and learn from. This was an experience I hesitated to join since I am an introvert and the thought of being filmed and recorded caused me some anxiety. Do you remember my blog about my goals for 2019? Goal number 5 stated: Do one thing that is "outside the box". Well, I thought here's that thing. Totally outside my comfort zone and outside the box for me. I find it extremely ingenious that you can get people together from different parts of the world at the same time to record such a thing. It was 10:30 am in Toronto and New York, 7:30 am in Los Alamos, California, 8:30 am in New Mexico and 11:30 am in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
Amazing!

I had two of my art quilts critiqued. The first was "Algonquin Rapids".

 The critique was not as painful as I expected it would be. I was commended on the flow of the painting and the obvious movement of the water. The diagonal format was a good choice according to Dr. Sider. There were two areas of distraction for her and one was the dark backwards "C" shape just to the left of the tree. I was encouraged to tone that shape down as well as tone down the orange in the tree. I was told the eye was continually drawn to those areas due to the value and colour choices I had made. That made a lot of sense to me. Dr. Sider had photo-shopped my image and did the toning down for me but I felt that her changes took some of the depth away from my version and caused the trees to blend in with the background too much. 

The second piece critiqued was " All Creation Sings".

On this piece I was again commended for the diagonal format for the design and also the fact that I concentrated the quilting in the grasses, water and sky and left the rocks with minimal quilting. Dr. Sider felt that the sky was too heavy with too many colours so in her photo-shopped rendition she took out several of the colours which made it a little less busy and a little more calm. This time I agreed with her that the changes did enhance the design. 

I took her suggestions to heart and will be a little more critical myself on my work before I call them done. I also have some peers on the Toronto Pod of SAQA that I could email my images to for different perspectives and advice which I will be sure to do with my next art quilt. 

It was stressful at the beginning, but I actually really liked the experience and hope that it makes a difference in my future art and that it also helps others to be discerning in their own art.

Goal number five met!