Elizabeth Busch Workshop
As promised, here is my first workshop review. I thought I’d start at the beginning.
While I had taken a handful of traditional quilting classes, my first art workshop was with Elizabeth Busch in 1995. The class, Taking Risks and Breaking the Rules, was sponsored by Front Range Contemporary Quilters and was a 2 day workshop.
The class was a series of design exercises with paper and drawing materials. I remember having to buy a few new supplies for the class as I didn’t have oil crayons or some of the other items that were required.
It’s been such a long time since I’ve taken the class it’s hard to remember much about it. I do recall that I was a bit intimidated as I was such a rank beginner, but I had fun and recall it inspired me to want to take many more classes as I felt there was a lot out there to learn.
I never used any of my collages as a jumping off point for a specific quilt. Although I did learn a lot about basic art concepts such as line, shape and proportion and that would be helpful for any subsequent work.
I have no doubt I would have heaps of praise to give Elizabeth if I were to take a class with her today as she is a brilliant artist and I can see from looking at the handouts and description of the exercises her class was well structured and organized and she clearly put some thought into the class.
I think it’s difficult for an untrained quilter to walk into their very first art oriented class. How to get the most out of the critique or even why the design exercises are useful isn’t really all that clear. But everyone has to start somewhere and become familiar with the format and language for these types of classes. The more advanced classmates can be intimidating but I’ve also found that are generally very friendly and helpful and willing to share knowledge with the newer class members.
Here is some of my work from the class. It doesn’t look anything like what I do today and I have no doubt if I were to repeat this class now my collages would most likely be more closely related to my current body of work. But I was starting at ground zero and the only contemporary quilts I had made were Housework and Spring Cleaning.
These 3 collages were made on 3″ x5″ index cards.
This collage is 10″ x 6:
Posted by Lisa in: Art Education
Mary Manahan said,
February 1, 2006 @ 4:13 am
I can’t believe it…..MY first quilt art class was with Elizabeth Busch also! I was in WAY over my head, but had fun anyway. It was a week-long workshop at QBL and we did design exercises like the ones you did, then stretched canvas (duck) fabric on our tables and painted with acrylics, masking with tape, overpainted, then made a quilt based on an emotion or feeling with our painted fabric, incorporating commercial fabric with it. We were in one of the only air-conditioned classrooms, and I was freezing. So I chose COLD. I’m looking at it now, as it hangs over this desk. It’s pretty bad. But I’d like to try it again. Elizabeth was wonderful. I probably had the worst art quilt in the room, and at the end, she called it a “gem”. What a sweetie!
Pat said,
February 1, 2006 @ 12:29 pm
The “art” class I took last fall - my first - stunned me with the friendliness, helpfulness and willingness to share everything from methods and work processes to stepladders. Was not aware of competitiveness among participants and came to the conclusion that doing ones “own thing” mitigates what can become a common reaction any time people group together. I too entered that classroom the first time knowing that I was likely in over my head, but not caring too much if I was. As it turned out, I was fine. I give a good bit of the credit to my classmates.
Omega said,
February 2, 2006 @ 5:37 am
It is interesting to see that you were interested in placement right from the very beginning.
When I started I preferred to be with the advanced participants so that I would be stretched. I’ve never wanted to come out of a workshop with a finished, or even a started piece of ‘real’ work, but enjoy the general education. EB sounds like a wondrous teacher, which is not always the case with good artists. My very first advice about quilting came from Elizabeth Gurrier who lived near me in New Hampshire when I was there for a while. It was not a workshop - I was just visiting her studio.
samantha said,
February 6, 2006 @ 4:01 pm
Would Front Range Contemporary Quilters be good for someone trying to break away from traditiona quilting, do you think? (Not to hijack your post, just curious…)l