2020 SAQA Benefit Auction: Deb’s Dream Collection

It’s that time of year again.  Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) is flooding the airwaves with beautiful art quilts. I always have fun choosing my dream collection of six quilts that I would love to hang together. Most years I hem and haw—add this one, take this one out.  This year, however, I found 6 pieces in less than 20 minutes.  Since it was so quick, I decided to go back and take a look at my dream collections from other years. Wouldn’t you know, 2020’s choices are very similar to the ones I chose 5 years ago for my Riot of Color collection.  So I’ll just be unoriginal and call this one “Riot of Color and Shape.”

I started browsing at the bottom of the page of quilts. I think those at the end of the list are sometimes overlooked. When I saw Kit Vincent’s piece Small Works no.19, I knew that would be one of the quilts. Everything else would have to work with that piece.

Next I came across Mary Jo Stipe’s Sunflower Season in Santa Fe. Circles and grids, two of my favorite shapes.

Then came Gail Sim’s Walled Off. Coils are another of my favorite shapes, and square coils are especially cool.

It was a very hot day when I was doing my selection, so the rest of the pieces also used pretty hot colors. But Margaret Griffiths’ cooler fern, Green World, still seemed to fit.

The shapes in Floris Flam’s Braque-ish and June Robertson’s A Brighter World just tied the collection together.

I just love all the stitching on these small works of art, from Kit’s dangling threads to Floris’ precision. June used lots of organic stitching and Gail changed thread color masterfully. The straight rays of light emitting from Mary Jo’s sunflower and Margaret’s free-motion leaves add to their floral-themed art.

There’s a lot to love in my dream collection, but there are hundreds more fabulous pieces for you to bid on. Visit the auction page of SAQA’s website for more information on how to bid.