European Patchwork Meeting was a Blast!

I’m back now from my amazing trip to Europe and my solo show at the European Patchwork Meeting (EPM) and getting my photos and thoughts organized to share with you.

We spent three days in Paris before the show opened–my husband and me and one of our adult children. We had two birthdays to celebrate! That’s a whole other post, but here’s a favorite photo from that part of the trip–so much inspiration there.

We took the high speed train from Paris to Strasbourg, then rented a car for the trip to the EPM in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in the Alsace region. International driving is always a little nerve wracking for me, but it all went well–our GPS worked in the car so it was a lot easier to get around than it used to be.

My show was very centrally located in the historic Theatre in town, just steps from the commercial area. Although this is billed as the largest quilt show in Europe, the venues are scattered among a number of villages in the area, with a handy shuttle to get visitors around.

This was the outside of the building, with a show banner on the left and a banner on the right with the names of the artists in the building–Carolina Oneto, Cecilia Koppmann and me!

I was on the first floor–which is the second floor in the US–in a long hall, so it was a little hard to get photos of the whole show at once.

We set up the show the day before the opening–I was glad to have helpers! This setup shot gives an idea of the space.

 

That’s my husband Phil adjusting the hanging wires. These two pieces, Aquarius on the left and Fireflies on the right, were among the most popular with visitors, likely due to their strong colors and interesting stitched texture. There are a lot of photos of these floating around now!

Walking up a lovely staircase, this was the first set of quilts in the show. Fractured Time is the blue one on the right, Kaleidoscope in the middle, and Serendipity on the left. Most of the quilts are pictured in the Portfolio section of the website with a little more detail about each piece. Click on the links to get there if you’re interested.

Next is 3 Friends–this was one of the ones I finished just before the show. It’s a big piece–about 67″ x 80″–and took a little longer than I anticipated to get it quilted! Visitors smiled at the three figures dancing across the surface.

 

Homage to Matisse and Blue Confetti hung just behind the table where I stood. The French visitors enjoyed the reference to their native artist–Henri Matisse. I have long been inspired by his work, particularly the late cutout collages.

 

Awakening was the other piece I finished just before the show. It’s also quite large–about 67″ x 85″—and I wasn’t sure I was going to bring it until the very last minute. This one was a challenge to myself to work with low saturation, duller colors instead of the highly saturated bright colors I usually use. But since the exhibit was called Playing with Colors, I thought it was appropriate to include a quilt that used an entirely different color palette. I was glad I brought it, because it was very popular with visitors.

Finally, the last section included Fireworks on the left, Balancing Act in the middle, and Twist and Shout on the right.

I had been told by a friend who exhibited here last year that many visitors didn’t speak English, so I was prepared for that. Sadly I only speak a bit of French and a bit of German, so communication was sometimes a challenge–but we all had fun and in a pinch, Google Translate worked quite well! I also had my artist’s statement printed out in French, so that helped a lot to answer some of the common questions. This image above shows a group of people reading the statement. Another thing that helped is that many people in France expect greetings when you go into a shop or restaurant, so I didn’t feel awkward saying “Bonjour Madame (or Monsieur)” and that started some conversations.

In any event, I understand “beautiful” and “congratulations” in many different languages now!

And it was so much fun to see old friends and to meet many people in real life that I had only known on Instagram or Facebook–thanks to all who stopped by to say hello! I got photos with some of them, including my dear friend Sarah Hibbert from England, above.

I spent almost all of my time at the EPM at my own exhibit, but I did have a chance to walk around the charming town a little bit–there was lots of color and texture inspiration there!

Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this long post! It was a tremendous honor to show my work at the European Patchwork Meeting in 2022 and a wonderful experience. Thank you to Marion Keller and rest of the staff at the show for inviting me, and to all the visitors for their support and well wishes. I appreciate it!

I will write another post about Paris, and the visit we took to Barcelona after the show next time. I expect there will be quilts inspired by the colors, textures and art I saw in those places.