Exhibition

Passion and proportion II

Improvisation with a dash of repetition

18 January - 24 February 2019

Toi Gallery, Pātaka

The exhibitors in Passion and proportion II : improvisation with a dash of repetition are contemporary quilters from New Zealand and Australia. Their common link is their attendance at classes taught in New Zealand by well-known American quilting artist Nancy Crow. This is their second exhibition; the first - Passion and proportion I - was held during the last quilting biennial symposium in Christchurch 2017.

Renowned American artist Nancy Crow has been teaching design principles to quilters in the USA, Switzerland and other countries around the world for 25 years. She first taught this group in 2011 and has returned several times to teach week-long intensive design classes. Many members of the group have been to all of Nancy’s local classes while others have joined more recently. The group is usually made up of mainly Kiwis but there’s also a strong Australian contingent each time. For each class, the group converges on Silverstream Retreat in the Hutt Valley with cars full of fabric. The on-site accommodation and catering allows them to forget partners, pets and other distractions, and simply sew from sun-up to sundown.

When teaching, Nancy’s focus is on developing her students’ individual design skills. Each quilting artist in this group has created new work for the Passion and proportion II exhibition to demonstrate the significant developments of their own styles that have resulted from participating in Nancy’s classes.