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.