The making of a gallery at Festival of Quilts 2015

It is that time of year again - Festival of Quilts is upon us. If you live in, or are travelling around the UK at the moment and have an 'interest' or should I say 'obsession' with all things quilt, then it is likely that you will be either visiting  the NEC in Birmingham yourself over the next few days - or at least know someone who is!

Until this year, I have always entered quilt shows through the front doors, but this visit was a little different to the usual trip most people make; very early in the morning  I went in through the back door - door 9.4 to be exact (this place is a vast maze!) - and entered an almost empty hall. I was greeted by a few guys busy with hammers, nail guns, and paint rollers and the odd electrician, busy installing temporary walls, lighting and carpets . They had been there all night I think!

Wearing my very attractive high viz jacket I managed to find gallery L16 - 3 white walls tucked in the corner of the enormous Hall 9, near the cinema, cafeteria and the all important loos. It doesn't look much does it? Well, not yet......

Gallery L16: Early Wednesday morning!

The truth is, however, that the organisation for this particular gallery began almost a year ago. Things like this don't happen overnight. I have to admit, I have never really thought about it before. But I thought it might be interesting to let you know the sort of things that do go in in the background to get a gallery such as this up and running.

Last year Chrisse Seager was responsible for the organisation of the challenge. The theme, you may remember, was 'Dislocation' and the quilts which were hung in the Dislocation Gallery at last year's Festival of Quilts and subsequently went on to tour across Europe and the UK. 
Click  here for more about that challenge
.

This Saturday (8th August) Chrisse and Hilary Gooding are presenting a lecture where they will talk about the history of the CQ Challenges, the themes, the need to jury the entries in recent years, the organisation of the challenges and the galleries as well as the opportunities available for the quilts to tour. The lecture will be illustrated with quilt images from past exhibitions. If you are there, why not go along to find out more and support the work of Chrisse and Hilary.

This year, Margaret Pratt has been responsible for the exhibition, assisted once again by Hilary Gooding and myself and guided by Chrisse whose experience has proved invaluable in making this year's gallery a success.

The work for this year's challenge actually began late last year when the theme for the challenge was decided. From there the website to publicise the challenge needed to be created and the application forms needed to be set up and put online. These were available from April 1st, but of course, lots of testing needed to be done to make sure they were ready and working properly for release. As you can imagine, all of this takes time. After several discussions and meetings the plan for this year's challenge was set and when April 1st arrived I waited for the applications to arrive via the website and through the post. The first entry arrived that day! 

The entry form required a lot of detail from the applicant as well as an image of the quilt. All of this had to be carefully collated and stored to ensure no mix-ups! A 20cm square sample created using the same fabrics and methods of construction also needed to be submitted by post, sent to Margaret directly. Keeping track of applications, images and samples was a good test of my organisational skills, especially as many of the parts of the entries arrived weeks or even months apart. Sometimes forms or images did not arrive - lost somewhere in the mysterious goings on of the internet, and sometimes I received a photo of someone's granny or pet dog (which were lovely to see) instead of the quilt! However, it all came together in the end and I enjoyed logging on each morning to see what had arrived in my inbox overnight. The remarkable range of ideas and styles were fabulous to see. 

REMEMBER
As this is the only image of the whole quilt the judges would see it is REALLY important that the photo is the very best you can take. Judges like to see the quilt in all its glory - not hands, heads, feet and miscellaneous background. Having it straight also is a good idea.

The great thing about the way the entry process to the competition has been organised is that I was able to do all of this whilst in New Zealand - something which would have been completely impossible were it not for high speed internet and my laptop! I was also able to answer questions by e mail and hopefully nobody even realised that I was over 11,000 miles away.

As the entries arrived I gave each one its own number and set up spreadsheets to keep track of the process....... more on the importance of that later. I also created a secure gallery in the cloud to allow Margaret and myself to access the images and other information from wherever we were. The power of the internet still amazes me!

As the samples began to arrive by post, Margaret Pratt was also excited. She too enjoyed opening the packages that started arriving on her doorstep at regular intervals. I am sure her postman must have wondered what on earth was going on. Little did he or she know what was to be coming later!! We kept in close contact to ensure we both knew what had arrived and what was still outstanding for each of the entries. 

To ensure the entries were judged anonymously, the back of each sample was covered over with a piece of fabric which Margaret hand stitched in place, so covering the name of the maker. She then needed to add the number I had given to the quilt. That way we were able to keep the maker of the quilts anonymous for the jurors and keep track of which sample was which.

Annette Morgan

By 23rd June the entries were all in (well............. almost all in) and a whole package collated for Annette Morgan and Marion Barnes, the 2 jurors for this challenge. For them to do their job, Annette and Marion wanted to see the stitched sample, the written statement and the full image of each piece. Being able to zoom in on the photographs enabled them to see any detail. I can't emphasise enough the need to take a decent photograph of your quilt should you ever enter a quilt competition in this way. 
Margaret then made a special trip to Ipswich to take everything to the jurors and waited for their decisions.

 

Marion Barnes

Annette and Marion selected 43 quilts which they felt best matched the brief for the challenge, and these are the quilts you will see hanging in the gallery in hall 9 (stand L16).

By the 1st of July the selections were complete and it was then my job to write to all those who had entered, giving the good and bad news respectively. Giving good news is always easy, but sending bad news is never a pleasure and a number of people were understandably disappointed.  It is the one part of the organisation of this event that was not enjoyable. 

From that point on it all got a bit crazy!

A few of the samples needed to be returned to their makers, as they did not wish for them to be put on display as their quilt was not selected. 

The selected quilts quickly began to arrive at Margaret's home (the postman didn't know what had hit him!) and needed to be carefully unpacked and stored ready for transport. Margaret's husband John constructed a custom made carrier and also constructed the hanging battens for the quilts. (Just in case you did not know - each quilt needs to be screwed to the wall to ensure they are not stolen. It has happened. Can you believe it??!!)

John fixing Alicia Merrett's beautiful quilt to the wall with screws through the hanging batten)

Obviously, in many months to come, the quilts will all need to be returned to their makers - so the packing materials which the quilts arrived in need to be kept for their safe return. Margaret tells me she has a large part of her loft space filled with them!

A few of the hanging plans, one for each wall, showing thumbnails of the quilts (all to scale).

As the quilts arrived Margaret told me that she was delighted to see that they looked even better in reality than the photographs. She was then finally able to complete her hanging plan for the gallery. Many months earlier she had created a general hanging plan - knowing the dimensions of the walls of the gallery - but she needed to have the quilts in front of her to make her final choices as to which quilts to hang together. I am sure you can imagine how long that must have taken and the difficulty of deciding where to place 43 quilts in relation to one another!

Labels also needed to be created. Using the statements provided from each maker I created labels which Margaret was able to print and mount onto foam board. I haven't asked her how long it took - but I am sure it took another day at least to get them all done perfectly.

In addition to all this, Margaret also mounted each of the 20cm square samples she received (with a few exceptions as mentioned earlier) and placed them into files which she also beautifully decorated. These are the files you will see on the tables at the gallery which you are able to handle and give everyone the opportunity to see up-close the construction methods and materials used for each quilt. 

Oh... I almost forgot - the timetable for the stewarding - that also completed by Margaret.


Finally, on Wednesday 5th August, Margaret and her husband John set off early from their home with the car packed with tool kit, quilts, folders, paperwork, more paperwork, tickets, car park permits, ladder................... and lots of other 'stuff' and arrived bright and early at the NEC.

I set off early with my husband too - with parking permit, but without the all important entry tickets! - Margaret put them in the post last week and the envelope still has not arrived!!  Thank goodness that didn't happen with any of the quilts! 
Fortunately replacement tickets were provided once we arrived at the all important door 9.4!

Margaret holding her stack of labels. Thanks to her great organisation everything was packed in order and ready to put up quickly and easily on the day.

Which brings me to the final stages of setting up the gallery.  John and I hung the quilts and Margaret and Jeremy organised the labels. But the best way to explain is in pictures - I have written far too much!!

Marking the wall for the temporary top string line to be put up.

The second quilt to go up

More screws required

Quilts unpacked and ready to hang

The master plan!

Getting there

John, with wooden batten in hand

Jeremy and Margaret motoring along with the labels

Not many left to hang now

All in all it took just over 6 hours in total to have the quilts and labels hung. (with just one coffee break!) Our tables never did arrive - despite several visits to the 'table lady' - so we kept our 'setting up' table and used that. I think I saw John sit down once - so it was a long day all around. But I hope you will agree - the gallery looks fabulous. The quilts look amazing - and the total amount of hard work put in to the creation of each will surely number in the thousands of hours. Add to that the number of hours that Margaret and John, Hillary and myself have  added and it is a VERY big number indeed. I would not like to hazard a guess.

So - a huge THANK YOU to all involved with the creation of this gallery, and especially to Margaret. If she had not volunteered to take on this role this gallery would not exist. If I have forgotten to mention someone I apologise now. 

I will leave you with some more images of the quilts as they were when I left them on Wednesday evening, before the cleaners arrived to make everything spick and span.  I will not be back until Sunday, when I will see the completed gallery for the first time before I then take it all down again. If you are going to the Festival of Quilts I hope you will stop by to see the gallery - it is WELL worth it and if you are there on Sunday I look forward to saying hello.

If you have any photographs that you would like me to add to this blog them please do send them - I would love to create a beautiful gallery for those who were not able to attend to see.

Once the gallery is taken down on Sunday evening the quilts are off on tour. I do not know where they are going as yet, but CQ's Exhibition Officer, Amanda Wright will take ownership of the collection from Margaret and give her a much deserved break. 

Hilary Gooding will also begin creating the 'book of the show' as in previous years. See here for the fabulous  books she has previously created. Watch this space to find out more about it!

I hope you have enjoyed finding out more about the background to this year's gallery at Festival of Quilts. If you are there tomorrow, why not pop in to Chrisse Seager and Hilary Gooding's lecture which gives more detail about the background to last year's challenge 'Dislocation'. 

Thanks for reading!

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