Florida CraftArt presents regional art-quilt exhibit

For Immediate Release April 12, 2022
Florida CraftArt presents regional art-quilt exhibit
Florida Craft Art is exhibiting The Artist’s Question…Answered in Fiber, quilts created by 29 members of the Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. (SAQA). The show is a project of SAQA’s Florida Region, in cooperation with these Gulf regions: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. It will travel to five additional venues in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas through summer 2023.
Works in the exhibit were selected by renowned New York quilt designer Zak Foster. Artists were challenged to pose a question or grapple with an issue, then answer the question through the creation of an original art quilt.
Bobbi Baugh, one of the artists and co-chair of the exhibition committee says, “I think viewers will be amazed at the way a group of artists could all begin with the same premise and create such a wide variety of artwork.”
SAQA is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt: “A creative visual work that is layered and stitched or that references this form of stitched layered structure.” Over the past 30 years, the organization has grown into a dynamic and active community of artists, curators, collectors and art professionals located around the world. Their vision is that the art quilt is universally respected as a fine art medium.
Florida CraftArt is located at 501 Central Avenue in St. Petersburg and is open Monday through Saturday from10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.FloridaCraftArt.org or call (727) 821-7391. Florida CraftArt is a nonprofit organization founded in 1951 and headquartered in St. Petersburg. Its mission is to grow the statewide creative economy by engaging the community and advancing Florida’s fine craft artists and their work. Fine craft art is presented in its 2,500-square-foot Florida Artists Gallery and curated exhibitions are featured in its adjacent Exhibition Gallery. Florida CraftArt is the only statewide organization offering artists a platform to show and sell their work.
The show runs April 25 through May 14, 2022, and is made possible by a sponsorship from Jeannine Hascall, the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and the City of St. Petersburg. Docent tours are available upon request.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Wednesday, May, 6 p.m. Join SAQA artists as they talk about their work on Zoom. (The Zoom link is available on FloridaCraftArt.org.)
CUTLINES (More images of work available on request.)
1. From Deland, Florida, Bobbi Baugh’s quilt, Nor Could Our Hands Catch, answers her question, “How can an artist capture nature-in-motion in a still, two-dimensional plane?” To do so, she handprinted monotype patterns within the bodies of the fish and birds creating a composition that implies randomness, and stitching that implies dynamic movement.

2. Angie Knowles, of St. Petersburg, Florida, made a 30-inch square art quilt called The Same but Different. She says, ”How can humans be created the same, but yet end up so different from each other? We all consist of the same materials – bones, skin, cartilage, muscle and have the same needs. Yet we are so different. Different habits, different wants and desires, different ways of loving. These differences, subtle as they may be, are noticeable even in identical twins. In the end, it is the threads of humanity that connects us.”

3. Sarasota, Florida artist Peg Green said her quilt, Feeling Exuberant – Somersault, was created to express joy, delight, vivacity, lightness of being, exuberance. She says, “These are feelings in my heart that animate and guide me.” Incidentally, Green was the first person to decipher the earliest cuneiform script (3200 B.C.), and then joined the University of Pennsylvania as an editor on their project to write a forty-volume dictionary of the Sumerian language.

4. Urban Jeopardy, by Sally Dutko of Fort Myers, Florida, is the answer to her question, “Can art initiate a dialog about the future of our cities?” Her dyed and painted fabrics transform into abstract compositions hinting at subjects through color, texture, line, pattern, and typography. She says, “With overwhelming issues of air and water pollution, seas rising, chemicals destroying the food chain, artists can influence cultural and social movements, as has happened throughout our history. At my home in Florida, I am directly affected by oil spills, undrinkable water, encroaching blue-green algae and red tide, and massive deaths of wildlife and coral reefs. I am challenged to acutely observe, listen, research, and explore. As artists we must help define and create a myriad of possibilities for reshaping our transitioning urban landscape.

5. Susan Lumsden, of Brooksville, Florida, created Anclote Answers: Estuarial Quandaries to answer her ultimate artist’s question, “What if?” She incorporates hand-dyed fabric in abstract patterns with hand-cut linoleum printing.