The winner has been announced in our first contest of the year, so now it's time for the next competition. This time there is a different kind of prize.
When you opened this page, did you notice the new banner? Think how nice a photo of your artwork would look in that spot. If you would like to see your artwork there, here's your chance. The winner of our new contest will have their artwork displayed as the banner on this website for the months of April, May, and June, 2012.
Sound good? Here's the contest: Simply identify what's shown in our new banner photo above. Send your answer in an email to "SAQAMI@aol.com" - the link is at the bottom of this page. DO NOT post your answer in a comment to this site; although we love usually comments, we want these answers to come by email in fairness to those who correctly identify the photo. All emails must be received by midnight (EST) on Saturday, MARCH 10. The winner will be randomly selected from all the correct answers. We'll announce the winner, ask for photos of three or four works, and then select the one that works best for our site.
Sorry, this contest is restricted to SAQA members who have designated Michigan as their first or second region.
Next time you type words into Google and click on "Search", give a thought to the Google spider crawling through a gazillion webpages to satisfy your request. "Spider" is a nickname for Google's famous algorithm; did you ever wonder what makes its little "1"s and "0"s click, clatter, and line up to give you the kind of answers you were looking for?
First and foremost, it wants to find web pages that contain the search terms you requested. If you typed "art quilt group Michigan", then that is what it wants to find. But Google wants more than just a match from a web page - it also wants that page to be fresh, up-to-date, and useful. So what's important? What moves a web page to the head of the line (the coveted “first page of Google”) where you will actually see it?
Content is certainly very important: frequent, recent, relevant postings, especially in a blog, are infinitely preferable to "static" web pages - the ones that read exactly the same as they did in 1998.But Google also looks for indications that other people have visited the site and have found it useful:
-the number of hits to the page;
-the length of time a viewer stayed on the page (did they read it or just ‘surf’ through?);
-the number of comments on a page;
-the number of subscribers/followers on a page;
-the number of links from other pages to this page.
Now, I don't know exactly how Google (or Yahoo or any other search engine) does this, but I do know that this general understanding can be used to promote a website - or, in our case, the SAQA-MI blog. And here's where we can use a little help from our friends, that is to say, YOU.
The co-reps - Laurie and I - are mainly responsible for the content of this blog, but you can help by sending information (content) to be posted here - exhibits where you've been accepted; shows you are participating in; awards you have received; classes you are teaching. And send pictures. Since people love pictures, they spend more time on web pages with pictures, and share more links to pages with pictures. Which means that Google loves pictures, too, when it comes to ranking our site.
Google also loves activity on a page, so you can help SAQA-MI by leaving a comment, by subscribing to the blog, and by linking to it from your own blog, website, Facebook page, etc.
Why should we care to promote this blog? As SAQA members, we have some other ways of contacting each other - there is a [relatively inactive] SAQA-Michigan group on Yahoo; and the Michigan co- reps can send blanket emails to everyone in the region quite easily; and there's a FaceBook page under discussion.But not every member belongs to the Yahoo group or to FaceBook, and there's no opportunity for discussion or feedback with the emails. The blog, however, provides that opportunity - a place to share information, generate publicity, facilitate networking, and support each other as fiber artists.
PLUS the blog is available to non-members -- we can anticipate fiber artists/art quilters (and, hopefully, new members) who come looking for information and contacts, but who knows who else might be interested in us?Collectors? Groups looking for instructors? Gallery owners? If we can keep this blog rising to the top of the search results, more people searching for related terms will see it - and our members' names and our members' work - and it seems to me that this can only be to the benefit of all of us.
So get started! Leave a comment! If you go to the "give-away" post from January and leave a comment there, you will even be entered in that drawing. Or you could leave a comment below. Need an idea? Tell us what you think about a FaceBook page for SAQA-MI.
PS You may have noticed I didn't say much here about the actual "search terms" themselves: what words and phrases we should be using in our content to get more attention for our group and our work. More on that next time!
PSS The "binary" image above is a copyright free image from Free-StockPhotos.com.
Bonnie Peterson, a SAQA member from Houghton MI, sent us information about Fabrications III, a juried show for Upper Peninsula fiber artists, to be held at the Bonifas Fine Arts Center in Escanaba. Here's the link (scroll down a little to find this particular exhibit). Exhibition dates are March 29 through April 26. 2012.
The entry deadline is 3 pm on February 28, 2012.
Bonnie is the juror for this exhibit and will also be presenting a workshop "Into the Mix: Machine Embroidery & Heat Transfer" on Friday, April13. Information is included on the pdf of the application form. Here's the link to Bonnie's website.
Although SAQA's Michigan region has only two members in the Upper Peninsula, many of our other members may know fiber artists living in the UP, so I encourage you to pass this information along to your friends and to other groups you belong to or know of.
Mary McLeod Bethune Performing Arts Center & Visual Arts Gallery, Daytona Beach, FL
Von Biggs, a SAQA member in Indiana and a friend from the Fabrications Retreat in Michigan, sent us a link to the website of Juanita Yaeger, a fiber artist and SAQA member in Florida who is coordinating four exhibits for the Mary McLeod Bethune Performing Arts Center & Visual Arts Gallery in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Two of the exhibits are for traditional 2-D media - oils, acrylics, watercolor, etc. However, there is also one, Glued Down, for assemblage and collage; click here for information.
And one for art quilts: Stitched Through. Click here for information.
Good luck, everyone.
And be sure to send information on exhibits and competitions, both on entries and on your successes. The SAQA website has an excellent list of calls for entries - open shows as well as SAQA member shows - but often there are other competitions and exhibits that are not posted there. Let's keep each other informed.
We're starting a new year but continuing an old tradition -- well, not that old: Mary Andrews and Robbie Payne started these give-away contests in 2010. Laurie and I intend to continue them in 2012, but with a twist.
First, here's the gift: the catalog of "Beyond Comfort", a SAQA exhibit from 2010.
This exhibit is best described in the words of the curator, Eileen Doughty: "SAQA encouraged its members to create radical art - art which departed from their own body of work. The theme called for fresh, adventurous work, work that may have been rejected from other exhibitions because it was so radical it could not have fit into a cohesive exhibition. In 'Beyond Comfort', radicalism provides its own cohesion."
The exhibit catalog contains 64 pages, softcover. A color photo of each artwork is accompanied by the artist's statement about the piece. The curator's statement by Eileen Doughty and the juror's statement by Marci Rae McDade are also included.
To add this catalog to your library, leave a comment (on this post only) and you will be entered in a drawing to win a copy of "Beyond Comfort".
BUT (here's the twist) not just any comment. Since it's a new year, tell us your new year's resolution relating to fiber art. You can keep it simple: "Work in a larger format"; "enter a SAQA exhibit"; "take a drawing class"; "master free-motion quilting"; or (my personal resolution) "finish something!"
You can enter more than once but be sure to leave your email address (in addition to your name) if you don't have a blog or website that provides your email. You have until Sunday, February 12, at midnight. The winner will be announced on February 14. This could be your Valentine's Day present to yourself.
The new year, for me, has always seemed to begin in September.I know I’m not alone in this feeling: the anticipation of new classes, new subjects, new projects; the hope that everything will go well – and maybe a bit better than last year; and of course always the anxiety that comes with trying something new.
My new activity this September is acting as SAQA co-rep for Michigan, along with Laurie Ceesay who introduced herself on this blog in August.Now it’s my turn to write and introduce myself, and believe me, there is plenty of anxiety associated with that new task!
My name is Anne Hiemstra, and I’m now a fiber artist living and working in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and (for several lovely months each year) in Fort Myers, Florida.I have lived in Michigan all my life and attended the University of Michigan. I practiced law, specializing in commercial real estate, until I retired in 2006.
So you may be wondering where in that background there was any training in the visual arts.Well, there wasn’t much.I was one of those kids who couldn’t draw a straight line (although I was very good in geometry), and I didn’t take any kind of art class beyond sixth grade.But I did love fabric and yarn and textures, so I sewed many of my own clothes in high school and college and also learned to knit and embroider.
I also have always loved quilts.When I was growing up,we used quilts made by my grandmother and aunts. I wanted to learn to quilt, but somehow got the idea that all piecing and quilting had to be done by hand, and I was convinced that I would never have the time and patience to learn all that stitching, much less make a whole quilt!
But in 2000 I took finally took the plunge and enrolled in a quilting course that included piecing, applique, English paper piecing, and quilting, all by hand.I was completely hooked – although it didn’t take me long to buy a sewing machine and learn to do the piecing and quilting by machine.Hand applique, however, remained one of my great loves.
I enjoyed making traditional quilts but I never felt that I was making my own quilt, even when I devised my own patterns.“Quilting Arts” magazine introduced me to art quilting, and two workshops with Pamela Allen at Fabrications (2006 and 2007) convinced me that this was what I wanted to do.Since then I’ve attended workshops with Laura Cater-Woods, Fran Skiles, Cherilyn Martin and Els Van Baarle, and Laura Wasilewski.I’ve exhibited at a number of shows across the country, and even tried my hand at teaching a few times.I’m a member of Running With Scissors here in Michigan and of Art Quilters Unlimited in Florida.
I make art quilts because I love working with fabric and thread.I love texture and color and learning about design and composition.I love free motion work but also hand stitching.I don’t have any good explanation of my work - artist statements are always agony – so I’ll just show you two of my favorite pieces (both made, coincidentally for the Michigan Quilt Artist Invitational) and let them speak for themselves.
I look forward to serving as a representative for SAQA.Let me or Laurie know if we can answer any questions about the association.
I am sharing information about an art quilt exhibit which begins in Flint MI and then travels throughout Michigan into 2012. The group is Michigan Quilt Artists Invitational and was created by Mary Andrews and Marty Calhoun. Each year there is a theme and this years theme is "Art in The Kitchen." I have been part of this group for two years so I am familiar with the rules. The quilts need to be sized to 20 x 24 either horizontal or vertical, any color or style, any embellishments need to be containdr because of travel and the pieces are available for sale. There will be an opening reception on Friday, September 9, 2011 at the exhibit location Greater Flint Arts Council Gallery in Flint MI from 6-9 EST. If you live near Flint or are in the area check it out because the exhibit is amazing. It's fun to see how aproximately 60 fiber artists interpret the theme of the invitational. Contact Mary Andrews for the complete traveling schedule.
Perhaps there is some crossover between the SAQA MI members and the MQAI members. If you are one of these artists and are willing to share your piece on this blog please e-mail me at ceesaylaurie@yahoo.com and I will post it. Don't be shy and share for the people who may not attend the exhibit. Thank you!
