The Welsh Quilt Centre

The Prince of Wales Feathers 82 x 82 inches, Llanrannog, west Wales, 1880

I visited the Welsh Quilt Centre in Lampeter, Wales on August 10, 2024.

The exhibition Merry Go Round was on display.

All the quilts are hand quilted with spirals and flowers in the traditional Welsh manner.

This year, in addition to the older quilts curated from Jen Jones' collection, small quilts by contemporary quilt artist, Mary Jenkins, were displayed on several small suspended merry go rounds. 

upper left wall, Handkerchief Quilt, Pembrokeshire 87 x 82, 1820 - 1840. 
Lower left wall, Brecon Star 75 x 70 inches, late 19th century
 right lower corner of left wall, A Present, made by a Welsh lady who emigrated to Canada and sent this quilt back to Llanelli, Wales.  Redwork embroidery was taught in Canadian schools. 1901.
on the two hanging merry go rounds in the foreground are small quilts by Mary Jenkins

upper wall, a quilt made from bandana handkerchiefs with lovely welsh quilting
lower wall, embroidered cat with Canadian Redwork, early 20th century
foreground, small quilts made by contemporary quilt maker, Mary Jenkins.  

The high ceilings of the town hall upper floor allowed for a lot of the older quilts to be displayed. 

grey patchwork above the bed:  Lampeter Velfrey Tailor's Sample Quilt, machine pieced wool remnants, hand quilted, 88 x 81 inches 1895
on the bed is the Breconshire Tailor's Sample Quilt.  It has a blanket as a batting and is so heavy and irregular that it is awkward to display on the wall. Machine pieced wool, 88 x 81 inches, 1880
in foreground, more of Mary Jenkins small corduroy and wool quilts inspired by Welsh quilts

detail of the Breconshire Tailor's sample quilt (on the bed in previous photo)

Thomas Quilt, naive patchwork using victorian fabrics, sophisticated welsh quilting,
made in Newcastle Emlyn, 72 x 70 inches, 1880

detail of Welsh quilting on the Thomas Quilt

Brecon Star, cotton prints, hand quilted, Brecon, Wales 75 x 70 inches, late19th century

The most compelling thing in the 2024 exhibition was the Merry Go Round in the middle of the room that displayed four of the Jen Jones' collection.  All of them are red and white, and most are hand quilted using the famous Welsh technique.

Welsh quilts often used found textiles such as shawls, handkerchiefs or bandanas and added borders and the lovely intricate quilting.

Paisley Panel Quilt with Saw-tooth Border  hand quilted with lots of spirals,
Newquay, Cardiganshire, 85 x 82 inches, 1890

Cotton bandana medallion quilt

detail of the Thomas quilt (named by Jen Jones in memory of her pet cat)

One of the reasons we went to Wales after the Birmingham festival was so that I could make a pilgrimage to Lampeter to visit this famous shrine of Welsh Quilting. Founded in 1971 by Jen Jones,   please click on her name to read more about her passion for the Welsh quilt.   

Red Cross Signature Quilt 1918

 this stunning antique commemorate's the 100th anniversary of armistice

It was made in 1918 as a fund raiser

nurses paid to have their signatures embroidered on the white cotton

This antique is currently on display at One Sky Gallery in Sudbury until November 11.

It has been used and shows age, but that adds to the poignancy

lest we forget

red and white

 In 2013 we  visited Cappadocia, Turkey.
In the Valley of Goreme there are many churches carved into the small stone mountains.

 This post is a document of some of the red and white very early Christian markings inside those carved rock sanctuarys.

 Circles

 Crosses

 St Barbara's church 

 The Goreme area is a world heritage property

 9th century

 rows of triangles
shapes lifted on pedestals

I was very inspired by these paintings.
They reached across the centuries...
they are timeless.

new work in progress Judy Martin

gift cloth

I am carefully basting red edged hankies onto thin white linen in the shape of a cross.
There is something quite powerful yet really domestic in this work.
I believe in the power of domestic.
Domestic is a poetic space we carry along inside us throughout our entire lives.
Gaston Bachelard said that.

I'm not setting my kitchen timer for one hour like I used to do.
I just start working and go at it all day, breaking for walk or errands or visiting my dad or meals.
All the day, I work.
Even my reading has slowed to one Grace Paley short story a day,
her observations and compassions about mothers and lovers.

soft and gentle
healing vital energy
my work is absorbing, not exhausting

I feel my way towards a new body of work
I hope to join together my thought process with my making process

Usually, I begin with a thought and then start placing fabrics
but things then get urgent and firm up so quickly...I can't stop them.

I go with the new way
I have to.
I would like to slow down the many false starts I make.

I just don't have time to go off hand stitching in all directions.

soft, subtle
unsophisticated
intuitive, almost artless
that red!

red edge thin and delicate
I hold it up to the light ...
strength of colour
softness of cloth

facing down mortality
this is careful work
like the tai chi movement of carrying  a tiger - heavy yet dangerous

red and white together mean death in many cultlures, accidents

red thread edges mean protection in many cultures

red and white has such a childlike simplicity

Someone will love this, I think, as I slowly hem the linen,  because I do.
Old fragile squares plus new red threads and time

The time it takes to put it together and the time it recalls from the past century.
both

All of these hankies were gifts.

it's a gift cloth

Why are red and white so beloved and feared?

refuge from everything
a sense of chance

The work unfolds and takes its course
like nature does

Sati Zech

 When I started to use the internet as a research tool, I came across the work of Sati Zech.

A 2006 exhibition of her red and white bollenarbeit series excited many art lovers.

The rounded shapes refer to the rounded hills of her childhood landscape in southern Germany. Currently, the artist resides and works in Berlin.

 This beautiful white space is the Heidelberg gallery that held that important 2006 exhibition.

Sati Zech also works with black vinyl. The wall piece above is large, nearly 160 inches wide.

New work is in rawhide and uses the motife of repeated circles.  (2014)

In 2010, Zeck participated in a resdency in California.  James Chute interviewed her and the following quotes are from his article in the June 27 San Diego Union Tribune.

“I don’t want to have any contact with quilts,” exclaimed Zeck, whose English is salted with a pronounced German accent. “I never thought about quilts. I don’t want to make quilts. I have nothing to do with it.”  The only parallels between Zech’s work and most quilts is they both involve fabric.  Both also have the function of providing warmth. Of course, you have to pull a quilt over you for that to happen. With Zech’s larger pieces, you stand in front of her strange, hypnotic red shapes and layered canvasses and your temperature starts to rise.

“You can see, I’m not a drawer; I’m not really a painter. I’m a sculptor. I’m not really interested in color. I use color to show energy, that’s why my work is warm.”   Most of all, she’s intrigued by the “language beyond normal language,” how people reach out, cope and connect beyond mere speech.  “What happens when the normal language stops and you are in a crisis in your life?” she asked. “You are in really deep trouble, then you use other languages.

“I traveled and worked for 10 years in Africa, and for me this was very important because I found the same experience, that people don’t trust what you are telling. They don’t trust your words but they trust your body, they trust how you move, the way you look into my eyes, much more than the words.”   “The color red, I don’t use it as a color, it’s more like a statement, more like reminiscent to Africa. I never thought about it, but I’ve always lived in cities, and I think it’s reminiscent of the warmth, the heat and the energy of Africa, and the empathy between the people."

click here to read the complete article

More about this artist over on modernist aesthetic.