Carrefour II: Lois Parish Evans, Ina Statescu, AFHAM, and ValPatch Quilters

This post covers:

• Venue 2: Osmont Pavillion, with Lois Parish Evans
• Venue 3: Église St. Louis, with Ina Statescu
• Venue 4: Église des Chaînes, with the French Ananbaptist and Mennonite History Society (AFHAM)
• Venue 5: Temple Réformé, with the ValPatch Quilters

I have a main Carrefour Quilt Show page that lists all the posts of all the meetings I’ve gone to, and includes the posts from this year too.

Lois Parish Evans, a quilter from New Zealand, has the skills to make a small, densely quilted piece come alive with design and stitching. I included the title cards after each piece to provide her thoughts and techniques. I also loved the way she finished the edges of some pieces: with blanket stitching, instead of traditional binding.

If you want to see further details, click to enlarge the photos.

I loved the festive colors in this mandala. And the next one is a veritable horticulture index, with all the different shapes of leaves…but still in reds and greens.

I was also intrigued by the insertion of thread lace in some of the cutouts. The title of this is Red Alert For Going Green. She writes: “We are at a critical point for going green. Using a variety of green leaves as a symbol for nature, against a red alert square and with some ‘dissappearing’ leaves, I have sought to portray the strength of the danger that our planet faces. Red alert means it is time to take action.” This was made in 2020.

Leaves? Trees? Reflections?

Reflected Light, 2022

Even though she was working in a series, the two pieces project different moods, given the colors.

I thought the use of hand-stitching completed all the machine stitching, especially that teensy meander in the background,

I fell in love with this one.

Her use of repetition, and drawing the trees in geometric shapes only enhances the feeling of being in nature.

Click to enlarge the photo on the left to see the complete mandala.

A different kind of small quilt, this time, with fabrics on a black background.

It’s easy to see that her attention to detail really elevates this work of art. I love the wafting of the breeze, the feathers on the fronds and the intricate reflections of the rock.

Her work is timeless, and intriguing. I realized that working in small scale can really open up ideas that would simply be overly repetitious if done in a large quilt (like all the stippling, or the hand stitching). It was a pleasure to meet her!

We come out of the Osmont Pavilion (Venue 2) and head up to Église St. Louis. I’m very appreciative of their good signage!

This is one of my favorite venues, with its beautiful stained glass art, in a light and bright old church. Ina Statescu, a Franco-Romanian artist, is exhibiting here. She uses a variety of shapes and materials in her artwork. Before we get to some of the smaller pieces, let me show her main work, up near the altar area.

I think my husband shot this photo (he’s taller), or maybe he did the next one. All I want to say is that he was a partner in picture-taking, throughout all of Carrefour.

Title card for Chemin de Lumière, which translates to Path of Light. Notice it took her four years for this one, and while I can’t give you complete detail (we were roped off from getting closer), here are a few detail photos:

Click to enlarge. Her technique is so interesting, with longer and varied threads and intricate embroidery.

Many of her quilts just had numbers on them, without title cards.

Please forgive the cell phone shadows. This coloring is very subtle, but exquisite.

Many years of people ascending to the choir loft bring a patina to the stairs.

Her colors are not contrasty, nor vivid, but are quieter in their intensity, such as the yellow and green pieces, above.

Saints watch over the quilts (one of the perks in exhibiting in a church, I suppose), the one above being St Therese of Lisieux. (A reader wrote to say that her brown habit is the clue.) I love the juxtaposition of the more traditional church iconography and art with the contemporary quilts.

In some ways, Statescu’s pieces remind me of Rothko, with great fields of color.

Then out we go into the sunshine (it was a fairly hot day) to head to the next location.

This church is just down the street, and holds the exhibit for the French Ananbaptist and Mennonite History Society (AFHAM), a society dedicated to the Anabaptists and Mennonites from France in honoring their heritage and past. It traditionally exhibits a large collection of traditional Amish quilts, and this year it carried on the same.

Love those red ceilings!

An exhibit at the front, with more traditional quilts. I would have loved to seen that variation on a churn dash hung up, as the subtle color shifts were fascinating.

That quilt is just made more interesting with that lower right variation. (Did they run out of cloth?)

Facing the organ loft.

To honor their Anabaptist/Mennonite heritage, at the Carrefour main building they had this buggy, with sheaves of corn.

Out the door to Venue 5, the Temple Réformé, another church. I include these photos of the town just to remind myself I’m in France, in a series of small towns and at a quilt show!

We walk down, and hang a right at this driveway.

ValPatch is a local association (the visitor’s guide says) “from the Silver Valley (Val D’Argent)” which is comprised of the the towns Sainte Marie-aux-Mines, Sainte Croix-aux-Mines, Lièpvre, and Rombach-le-Franc. Twenty friends “regularly meet up and share their passion for all textile arts. Some of the members have been quilting for over thirty years. They all have different backgrounds and experiences in the textile industry, which leads them to make pieces in a variety of styles” (from show catalogue).

I love this group, and was happy to see they were selling small items for sale. I bought this little owl and Michelline, the maker, agreed to pose for a photo for me.

Owls were their theme this year, with the focus being on autumn.

I loved seeing what the quilters in this area were making. I used to belong to a group here of about 20, but we have dwindled down to just a handful and no longer meet together. (I miss them!)

A happy, convivial group!

Now, out the door and onto the next venue which exhibits the SAQA collection, and others. It will be in the next post about Carrefour.

Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving, if you celebrated, and are ready to think about your end-of-year sewing and parties and gifting and surviving the holidays.

How many days until Christmas? (I don’t think I want to know!)

Michelline’s owl

I did some more decorating:
Stella di Natale is up, along with a tiny quilt (free pattern for this).