Senior Citizen Ditch Day

I was in Houston, Texas last week for Quilt Festival, an event that draws 55,000 people, mostly women, from all over the world to look at quilts, take classes in making quilts, shop for stuff that goes into quilts, and then there is eating, drinking and shopping for other stuff.

Quilting is the biggest "hobby" industry in the US, and this is the biggest event. I was there to teach three days of classes. Wednesday, I had 35 students and taught them to make quilt tops, using a technique called "fusing" and using designs I created. (Go to my website, robbieklow.com if you'd like, it's easier to see than to describe). I did the same on Thursday, with another 35 students, then on Friday, I had 25 students in a free motion quilting class, with sewing machines.  There was a vendors mall (with about 1000 vendors) and a quilt exhibition (about 1000 quilts). I saw some of the quilts and bought some of the stuff and spent a lot of time networking. For me, networking means shopping and talking to the vendors and manufacturers, because they supply me with stuff for my quilts and loan me equipment.

It's interesting to me that I missed the lecture on Feminist art. The quilting industry is very woman based, both the consumers and the creators, I'd guess its about 90% women. It's a very good place to start a business, as I did, because the industry is women based in the first place, and you don't have to discount the needs of a family. I was able to start slow, teaching at different places around the county, my husband traveled too, and we took turns being in town. As the kids got older, I traveled more. My income helped them through college, and now I can take college classes again myself. I have an engineering degree, but in the construction industry, where I worked, there was so much chauvanism that when I got pregnant, I was fired, and then decided the hell with it, I'd just stay home and find my own way. That was ironic, because I went to engineering school to make sure I'd never have to depend on a man for anything.


I didn't take pictures of quilts to show you, the special exhibitions, which were more like what you would expect to be art, did not allow photography. There were all kinds of quilts though, the kind that are on beds, as bedcovering, and then those done as works of art.

Not many pieces of conceptual art, but a few Mary Fisher has a conceptual body of work and she was there with a special exhibition.

http://www.maryfisher.com/index.htm

I'll be gone again this week, judging and teaching at a show in Florida.

Robbi