TAFA Market Focus: Rose Hughes

"Riding the Thermals", by Rose Hughes, 45"x45", $3,500

TAFA is having its first public event during the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah.  We are excited to introduce TAFA to the public at large and are hoping to raise funds for our new website.   We have a silent auction and raffle, both available to online participants and an exhibit and vendors.   These are ways in which you can donate to support our efforts.  This blog will feature the works and vendors in the next two weeks.  You can see all of the TAFA Market posts in one place by clicking on this link. 

Today's TAFA Market focus zooms in on:

Rose Hughes

Visit Rose's TAFA Member Profile

When I first saw Rose's quilts on her website, my eyes popped out.  I shoved them back in and studied her compositions, choices of color, and fell in love.   RavenSpeak Quilts are about the fecundity of nature, the freedom of hills and sky, the beauty of sunsets, trees, and life.  Roundness, calling you in for comfort and a hug, her work invites me to a walk outside, to slow down and let the air move around me.

Rose will have one quilt in our TAFA Market exhibit, "Riding the Thermals", pictured above.  She describes it:

"This design was originally created for a Quilting Arts article showing the effects you get when discharging silk and velveteen and then using crayons and paint for surface design. This second version was completed and traveled as part of the special art quilt exhibit Noble Elements."

It happens to be one of my favorites and I can't wait to see it in real life.

The Raven shows up often as a symbol in Rose's quilts.  She explains it in her Artist's Statement:

"Inspiration for my quiltart is drawn from my love of the ever-changing hills that make up our landscape, and from the ravens that mirror and mock this region's boisterous, and sometimes-crazy human residents. Watching ravens, I see how they live and weave their lives among us. Keeping an eye on us, laughing at us, they point to a layer of life that often goes unnoticed. 

Poet Mary Oliver refers to these rowdy creatures as “an advertisement for the more than ordinary life.” By allowing myself to experiment with materials, techniques, and color my works are attempts to express our always wondrous, always changing landscape. 

In my work I use the idea of layers to transform fabric. I began by creating a layer of strong structural shapes that are important for their initial impact on the senses, and the suggestion they give of the landscape. 

Like a raven, stealing and hoarding the ‘shiny objects', I embellish the areas of the base quilt canvas. I use handspun yarns to create strong lines to highlight each shape, and I add whimsy, texture, and sparkle by using a variety of glass beads and magical, shiny found objects. These embellishments used in combination with hand painted, hand dyed fabrics, imported silks and selected textural layers bring each original piece to life."

Here is another example of Rose's quilts:

"Desert Tango", Art Quilt by Rose Hughes

I absolutely love her sense of color!  And, apparently other people do, too, as Rose has a busy schedule of workshops, teaching others around the United States how to see in a new way and how to translate that vision into fabric.

Rose has taken time from that full life to help out here with our TAFA Team Blog, where TAFA members who have Etsy shops showcase their work.  She does this even though she has closed her Etsy shop!  Pretty generous in my book...

If you would like to purchase "Riding the Thermals" and are not coming to Paducah, you can do so via Pay Pal.  Just email me and I will give you the details.  We will ship to you after the show.  Meanwhile, explore Rose's website and take a look at her schedule of workshops.  Who knows?  Maybe she can help you see the world in a new, colorful way!