Scrapbag Quilters Are Sharing Their Personal ‘Journal Pages’

The Journal Quilt Project was organized a few years ago for The International Quilt Festival in Houston as a free-form exercise in creativity. It was first suggested in January 2002 by Karey Bresenhan, the president and CEO of Quilts, Inc and the director of The International Quilt Festival. Ms Bresenham suggested quilters create a series of nine journal quilts, with each “page” measuring 8½ by 11 inches — the size of a standard sheet of paper — and each page depicting any subject or technique the artist chose.

Organizers wanted quilters to be encouraged to stretch and grow by trying new methods, and to experiment with color, image, composition, materials, and/or technique.

Quilters were asked to keep an informal journal to record the influences on their experimental work and their own reactions to this work. The quilted works offered a look back at the previous nine months of a quilter’s life while showing the further influence of time on an artist’s creative development and personal progress.

The Journal Quilt Project was not a contest or competition.

An exhibition titled “A Page from My Book: Journal Quilts 2002,” consisting of nine monthly quilt pages from each of the original 157 participating artists, was hung at the 28th Annual International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas.

The annual event draws more than 50,000 visitors from all over the world. Among those who visited the show and were inspired by “Journal Quilts 2002” were members of Newtown-based Scrapbag Quilt Artist Group who were, according to some members, “enthralled by them enough to bring home the idea to share.”

The group also decided to do its own Journal Pages project during 2003. That was the challenge for members who decided to accept it. Each year the group selects a subject and then allows time for members to work on their interpretations of that subject. This year is one of the first where the group has decided to follow in the footsteps of a national project; previous challenges have been created and selected within The Scrapbag Group.

This month The Scrapbag Quilters are presenting “Journal Pages: An exhibit of contemporary art quilts by The Scrapbag Quilt Artist Group” at C.H. Booth Library until April 16. Eight members accepted the challenge of putting their lives into quilted wall hangings. Legends under each page offer explanations of what was happening during each month.

On view are Journal Pages by Janet Bunch, Kelly Chiarandini, Carolyn Cooney, Nike Cutsumpas, Betty Gemelin, Norma Schlager, Anita Veccia, and Heloise Wilkinson.

Ms Wilkinson’s pages include pages that commemorate her granddaughter’s wedding, a vacation in Hawaii, birthday parties, a knee operation, and the trip her daughter’s family took to Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic.

Kelly Chiarandini’s pages follow the final days of a friend’s life, who died in September. The first nine pages of her journal are very somber, while the final three are more upbeat and include a three-dimensional wedding.

“I tend to think more three-dimensionally because I’ve been trained as an architect,” Ms Chiarandini explained while putting her panels on view recently.

The Scrapbag Quilt Artist’s Group, founded in 1985, is based in Newtown although members come from Fairfield and Litchfield counties. Its members meet weekly to share inspiration, assist with technical challenges, and support each other creatively and in their personal lives.

Previous Scrapbag Quilters exhibits at the library have been “Quilts in Motion,” where 12 members created 20 quilts in response to the challenge to create the illusion of motion in a two-dimensional quilt, displayed last year; “Into The Garden,” a collection of 22 art quilts representing the efforts of 12 members, displayed March 2002; and “Elements of Architecture,” March 2001.

The group did not present an exhibition in 2000 but in 1999 the group offered “Imagining Emily,” quilted wall hangings by members that were inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson.