A Challenge To Quilters––

Fiber Art In Motion

By Jan Howard

The challenge was to create the illusion of motion on a two-dimensional quilt. Twelve members of the Scrapbag Quilt Artists Group rose to the challenge.

A display of 20 of their fiber creations, entitled “Fiber Art in Motion,” is featured through March 31 on the main level of the C.H. Booth Library on Main Street.

Heloise Wilkinson, a member of the group for 18 years, started making quilts after retiring in 1976.

She said members of the group discuss various ideas for the yearly challenge. “We think about what we’d like to do,” she said. “There will be one that is more popular than others, and we go with it.

“The theme covers a lot of areas so people can do what they like to do,” she said.

Each artwork is an original design inspired by the maker’s personal interpretation of the theme. Some of the quilt techniques are traditional and others very contemporary, Ms Wilkinson said. “They are cutting edge, or avant-garde, ahead of the line.”

Participating artists in addition to Ms Wilkinson are Margaret Clayton-Amey and Kelly Chiarandini of Newtown; Nike Cutsumpas, Betty Gemelin, Peggy Giumarra, and Norma Schlager of Danbury; Cathy Allen, Barbara Crocker, and Judith Reilly of Brookfield; Stephanie Head of Weston; and Anita Veccia of Norwalk.

This is the fourth challenge exhibition by the Scrapbaggers in the past five years. For this theme, a design secret assisted the artists’ creative processes — that vertical and horizontal lines are inactive, but that diagonal lines force the viewer’s eye to move, thus achieving the feeling of movement.

The Scrapbag Quilt Artist’s Group, founded in 1985, is based in Newtown although members come from Fairfield and Litchfield counties. Its members meet weekly to share inspiration, assist with technical challenges, and support each other creatively and in their personal lives.

“You make good friends when you work together,” Ms Wilkinson said, adding there are only two other members from the original group that began in 1985.

Quilting is not just about bed coverings anymore, Ms Wilkinson said. “It’s very different from what most people think of as quilting.”