Athens OH, Saturday 23 May 2015

I made the trip to Athens to visit Quilt National at the Dairy Barn. I was down the road from the place but ended up doing a ridiculous loop as I have absolutely no sense of direction. I’ve always been like this, and it can be so frustrating.

The minute I walked through the entry I felt at home. The work was amazing: big, bold, detailed, exciting, arty, colourful, subtle, complex, painterly – all of these adjectives came to mind as I observed the work.

The organisers of the breakfast got it perfectly right. There was a table set out with a variety of sliced fruit and mini muffins (I had to try the chocolate and pumpkin – good!).

More than 60 artists were present and gave a 2 minute talk relating to their work. With 100 of us milling around, we didn’t get perfect full view of the pieces, but that was OK as we had time later to visit and revisit them.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so most of us had lunch at the picnic tables outside. Then it was time for more of the SAQA Symposium program. The jurors talked about how they selected the work. One session featured the Merbaum Collection, and then there was a panel of four artists who had had multiple pieces accepted into Quilt National over the years. In between I got some artist signatures in my catalogue and had lovely little chats.

A cute reminder of the original purpose of the building.