CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Wednesday 22 October 2008

Floor Walk with Dianne Finnegan

Hi everyone, I am just heading off to Brisbane for the Quilt Study Group of Australia Seminar. I hope to see many of you there. Annette Gero is staying for the Quilt and Craft Fair in Brisbane to promote her new book so if you are planning on attending, call in and say hello. She will have a few quilts on display including two reproduction quilts made from patterns in her book -The Fabric of Society.
Details of the next meeting are below:-Floor Talk - Dianne Finnegan at her exhibition - Ground Saturday 29th November at 2.00 pm.
Dianne Finnegan - quilts Meredith Peach - basketry and paintings.
The theme of the exhibition is Ground Cover, the layering of textiles that make up quilts as well as the layering of the environment. Dianne Finnegan has made quilts for nearly thirty years and along the way was President of the Quilters Guild during the Bicentenary, written books, traveled around Australia and internationally teaching, fundraising and meeting wonderful people. Her quilts are process driven and are inspried by two sources, the rough geometry of the landscape and the possibilities of the cloth. The exhibition will be held at Primrose Park Art Gallery Address: Matora Lane, Primrose Park (off Young Street), Cremorne
Telephone: 9936 8200 Website: www.primrose-park.com.au and will open on Friday, 28th November - December 5th.
Our floor talk will be on Saturday November 29th at 2 pm. This will be the last meeting for the year and hopefully as many people as possible can come. Directions for getting to Primrose Park: Car: Approx 10 min from city. Take the Ernest st exit off Warringah Expressway if you are coming from the city or anywhere south. From Manly or Northern Beaches, use the Spit Junction Cremorne Junction bypass route that brings you to Gerard St and Belgrave St and turn right at Young St in Cremorne. If you are coming from the north or west, you will need to travel via Crows Nest and preferably Ernest St, turning left into Young. If it is your first time visiting Primrose Park, check your directory first. Its a bit tricky but there is plenty of parking once you get there. See you then, Karen Fail Convenor.

Tuesday 14 October 2008

PATRON of the SQSG

Recently Karen Fail and the committee of the SQSG invited Dr. Annette Gero to become the Patron of the SQSG, after her role of 10 years as the founder of the SQSG and the Convenor.
We thought you would like to know a little about Dr. Gero and what contribution she has made in the quilting world.

Dr. Annette Gero
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES: QUILTS AND TEXTILES

Annette Gero, one of Australia’s first quilt historians, has been documenting and collecting quilts since 1982. She has travelled widely around Australia giving lectures and exhibitions on the history of quilts. For this work she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts (London). She was the first Australian to present a paper on the history of Australian quilts at the American Quilt Study Group Symposium in 1987 (Australian Patriotic Quilts) and at the quilt symposium "In the Heart of Pennsylvania " at the University of Lewisberg, Pennsylvania, USA, on Australian Waggas in 1988. She has also presented papers on her quilt research at the Quilt Study Group of Australia seminars; “Unleashing Collections”, the symposium of the NZ Costume and Textile Section of the Auckland Museum Institute; and at overseas conferences in Edmonton, Canada, New Zealand, France and London, UK. She has also studied quilt conservation and quilt documentation at workshops in the USA. She has published over 80 articles in magazines and journals on Australian quilt history.

She is perhaps most highly recognised for her own quilt collection which as been regarded as a "National Treasure" by the Manly Art Gallery. Her collection contains Australian, English and American quilts that have been exhibited in over 30 exhibitions throughout Australia in Regional Art Galleries, in NSW, Queensland and Victoria and through The National Trust. Her Australian quilt collection has been invited to the International Houston Show (USA) in 2002 and in 2003 to "Mosaiques d'etoffes : a la recherche de l'hexagon" at the Musee des Traditions et Arts Normandy , Martainville, France. In 2006, her quilts were exhibited in France at the textile museum, Musee De L'impression Sur Etoffes, Mulhouse and at the European Quilt Symposium at Ste Marie aux Mines, Alsace. Her first book Historic Australian Quilts was published by the National Trust in 2000. Her second book, The Fabric of Society - Australia's Quilt Heritage from Convict Times To 1960 with Kim Mclean, is to be published in 2008.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Dr Annette M. Gero
PO Box 398 Neutral Bay,
NSW 2089
a.gero@unsw.edu.au

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES: QUILTS AND TEXTILES

1983 Joined The Quilters Guild of NSW

1985 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts (FRSA London),
in recognition of research of historical quilts.

1988 Committee, for Australian Bicentennial quilt exhibition

1996 Faculty, Australian Academy of Decorative Arts, Sydney

1996 Founder and Convenor of the Sydney Quilt Study Group

2000 Work in relation to Australian quilts archived in National Library of Australia

2001 Convenor, Quilt Study Group of Australia

2002 Postgraduate Guest Lecturer, School of Fine Arts, Newcastle University.

2003 Elected Board Member, International Quilt Study Center, Nebraska

2003 Associate Fellow, International Quilt Study Center, Nebraska
2007 Patron, Sydney Quilt Study Group