May - Talk given by Penny Bicknell and Hilary Richardson “Group Quilts By Design”

Penny Bicknell and Hilary Richardson, both members of the quilt group “By Design” came to show and tell us about how their group of eleven leading textile artists, originally from the south of England, now spread more widely across the UK collaborate and push each other to create their quilt art.

The process starts with a retreat away together where they discuss and agree a theme for their work, which is interpreted by each artist in their own way. They then go home and each group member makes two identical (or as near identical as possible) starter pieces. One of these will be completed by its original maker and the second substantially altered – sometimes beyond recognition – by three randomly chosen group members in turn. The original artist then gets back this second piece and then uses it to create a finished piece.

We found it quite difficult sometimes to discover the original start piece in the quilt pairs - and this talk certainly helped us to understand the challenges of the creative process and also appreciate the collaboration and trust that the group have in this design process to inspire each artist to create an artwork they would never have planned to make but were grateful to have been pushed into making as a result of other group members interventions.