Opening Night of Transitions Show
The Transitions show was a solo exhibition of textile art by Carol Schmold held at The Courthouse Art Gallery in Kerrobert, Saskatchewan beginning November 10, 2008 through January 30, 2009. The official show opening was held on Friday, November 14, with the artist in attendance presenting an inspirational artist talk entitled “Revealing the Artist Within”.
The show comprised of work demonstrating the artist’s personal journey from traditional quilts to more contemporary examples of art quilts. Over two dozen works of art were on display in the historical court room, including ‘A Flourishing Community’, a quilt recently completed specifically for this show.
Inspired by an autumn ablaze with colour, the artist let her imagination lift her above her hometown, gaining a bird’s eye view of nature’s spectacular palette displayed in each little garden below. The quilt was constructed almost entirely with cotton fabric hand-dyed by the artist, complimented by a commercial batik cotton. All quilting was done by machine using hand- dyed threads and sections of the quilt were then enhanced with hand embroidery and beadwork.
Some of the more traditional quilts in the show included Homespun Milky Way, Cock-a-Doodle Dandy, Hazy Summer Daze, and Brown Sugar and Bumblebee Pie, all original quilts designed by the artist.
Homespun Milky Way is a good example of a traditional scrappy quilt made entirely from commercial ‘homespun’ plaids. The setting of this quilt was designed with a sashing that formed a second series of stars, smaller than the main blocks, and therefore creating more visual interest. This quilt was commercially machine quilted and finished with a scrappy binding made from leftover plaids.
Cock-a-Doodle Dandy is one of the earlier quilts made by the artist. This quilt could be classified as a traditional sampler style quilt, with blocks of varying designs and sizes. This made the quilt interesting but difficult to piece together, resulting in extensive graph paper sketching and the necessary use of filler blocks. The entire project was machine pieced, hand embroidered, and both hand and machine quilted by the artist.
Homespun Milky Way and Cock-a-Doodle Dandy
Some of the smaller pieces in the show included a quilted table runner called Eggplant and Green Beans, which began as a project to use up leftover scraps and resulted in a wonderful experiment with a new colour combination of purple, olive green, and black.
Dolly Sweethearts is another smaller quilt in the show and was inspired by childhood memories of garden tea parties with dollies. The artist designed this traditional crib-sized quilt back in 2003, incorporating redwork embroidery similar to pieces made in the 1930’s and earlier. The original quilt was made in red and cream, but would look charming in any combination of colours. Due to many requests, the artist eventually designed and published a pattern for this quilt.
The photograph on the left is of Brown Sugar and Bumblebee Pie, a traditional lap-sized quilt with a contemporary feel to it. The blocks for this quilt were constructed on different occasions over a long period of time and were not originally intended for the same quilt. It was an interesting coincidence they were all in the same colour scheme and therefore worked well together. Extra basket blocks were needed to create a balanced border around the quilt, with darker strips placed on either side of the baskets to fit all the pieces together properly. It took a few tries before the borders would lay flat but it was worth it – the resulting quilt is a favorite.