Education – Aotearoa Quilters Scholarship Award

The Scholarship Award is the result of an initiative of the Quilts Aotearoa committee.  It was set up in 2008 with surplus funds generated by the annual Exhibition held in conjunction with the Craft and Quilt Fair in Hamilton.
Two awards may be made each year to the value of $1500 each for the purpose of allowing a member to enhance their skills in the patchwork and quilting field e.g. judging, quilt valuations, advanced workshops etc.

Who can apply for an Aotearoa Quilters Scholarship Award?

• You must be a current member of Aotearoa Quilters with five years consecutive membership.
• You must have entered NANZQ Exhibitions, either Quilts Aotearoa or the biennial Challenge.
• You must be active in promoting quilting.

Applications will close on 15 October each year.
Enquiries to:  Debra De Lorenzo, education officer, debra@delorenzodesign.co.nz

Award Recipients

Thelma McGough

Thelma’s 2010 award went toward the payment of her university fees for a Post Graduate Diploma, which was completed in October 2010.  She will receive the degree diploma on May 6 and has recently begun to undertake the final part of her Master of Fine Art degree.  Thelma was the first student to pursue quilting as a path to a degree at Elam, considered to be New Zealand’s most prestigious Art School.  Being accepted as a quiltmaker for the degree course was an honour.

The focus for Thelma’s degree exhibition called Counterpain, was a quilt that focused on the names and ages of all the children killed in New Zealand from family violence over the past twenty years.  She uncovered 136 names: sadly, three more names had to be added since the completion of the work.  The quilt at present measures 13.80 metres long by 1.42 metres wide.   It is black fabric on which the names are embroidered in white thread.  The quilt was a collaborative effort.  Members of the North Island’s embroidery guilds embroidered the majority of the names and members of the Auckland Quiltmakers embroidered others, some individuals sewed two or three names — especially where the children all came from one family.

Yoke Helewes-Martens did all of the magnificent long-arm quilting: it was a mammoth task and contributed greatly to the overall impact and power of the quilt.  In Fine Art circles, this type of collaborative art is sometimes referred to as ‘Relational Aesthetics’.  The rewards from working this way are that it heightens awareness of the scale of this tragically sad subject matter.  Each participant was supplied with a fabric postcard with which to record her thoughts for the child, or reactions to the issue.

Thelma’s intention was to sew these on to the back of the quilt as a record of the contributor; however, once she read the poignant messages she felt that they needed to be seen and read by others too.  Ultimately, Thelma made six white felt books: each postcard has its own page.  They make heart-rending reading.

A secondary quilt depicted the ‘Bodymap’ which Auckland’s Starship Hospital use to mark injuries inflicted on to a child’s body.

Both quilts will be displayed at the Queenstown Symposium.

Maria van Buel

Maria applied for the Award because she wanted to learn to draw and paint and transfer her ideas into reality.  She completed a Learning Connexion course and is now applying that learning to her quiltmaking, using her ability to sketch, design and paint a whole cloth quilt.

Maria says, “I’m feeling more confident about my choices. Ideas I would have previously put aside because I didn’t know “how to…..” I’m now creating with great pleasure”.

Follow Maria’s recent progress on her website.

Shirley Sparks

 

When Shirley was awarded a scholarship in 2009, she was already making her mark on the New Zealand quilt scene.  She had won a Rookie Award in the NANZQ ‘Take Two’ Challenge in 2004 and various other awards.

Shirley enrolled in a Learning Connexion course which has given her the confidence to give things a go, with a greater understanding of colour, depth, balance, and proportion.

 

 

Marion Manson

Marion was at the crossroads of her quilting journey when she received the inaugural Award in 2008.  She used the funds to pay for travel, accommodation and course fees to attend Textiles Aotearoa at the Whitireia Community Polytechnic.

The workshop Marion chose was for five days with Glenyss Mann (Australia) titled ‘Fibres as a Metaphor’.  The course allowed Marion to continue her exploration of recycled wool and natural dyeing and extend personal and technical boundaries.