SOUTHERN FIBER ARTISTS

In about 2014 - 2015 Julia Graber gave a presentation to the Mississippi Quilt Association about an international are quilt guild, Studio Art Quilt Associations (SAQA). Her intention was to garner members for SAQA, which happened, but she also spurred the interest of many who wanted to dream and create outside the traditional bed quilt. Southern Fiver Artists of Mississippi formed as a result. The intention was to meet quarterly thought the state, though of many years meetings were held int he central region of Mississippi in an artist's studio, a conference room at a member's place of employment, a church, a member's home, a quilt shop, simply because a permanent venue could not be found. Recently, meetings have been held in different regions in homes and churches.

Members finally can commiserate with like-minded artists who share a passion to create art using fabrics as the main medium.

During these many years of gathering, members have enjoyed artful presentations by talented members on varied techniques, for example: surface design using markers, paint, stamping, shaving cream, weaving fabric, interleaving fabrics, mosaic fabric making, letter usage; twisting fabric; confetti fabric; principles of design; collage quilting; photo to fabric; 3D block design, and so many more topics.

They have also participated in hands-on projects including cuff bracelet making, the basic interleave designed quilt, an interleaved and oversized moon-over-the-mountain block, fabric-wrapped bowl making, improv piecing, words on quilts, and repurposing the remains of cutouts from another quilt to make a new quilt.

Members have enjoyed working together as a team to create quilt art. Leanne Green introduced the reaction method whereby a team of four people worked together to create four pieces of art. The first person created the background. The second person ironed down fabric pieces to enhance the background and used painting and stamping if desired. The third person continued to add fabric, painting, and stamping. The fourth person finished the 12" x 12" quilts by quilting and binding them. This intriguing method was introduced to the membership at large at a meeting, and everyone went home with the start of their own reaction project to finish as desired.

Another way members have worked together is by participating in slice quilts. Cathy Reininger has headed up several projects this way. She decides on a scene, has that scene blown up to the size of the finished quilt, slices the scene in three to five sections, and hands out the slices to participants. The Participants then use the picture to make their portion of the quilt. These slices are meant to hang together or alone. One five-piece slice quilt now hangs at the Mississippi Agricultural Museum after having won many awards at local and international shows. Sets of three-piece barn quilts likewise were in many shows and won awards.

It has always been the goal of the members to share their art form with the public. Besides local, national, and international quilt shows, members have exhibited at different venues including colleges, museums, cultural centers and galleries.

It is the intention of these fabric artists to create because they cannon not create, to pass on their art tradition, to gain recognition for the artists they are, but mostly to share their work and to let aspiring fabric artists. know that they too can create art and that there are people out there who think and create like they do and are happy to pass on their knowledge and methods of achievement.