I’d love to introduce you to Lisa Walton, wonderful artist and quilter from down under in Australia. I had the great good pleasure of rooming with her last October in Houston at the International Quilt Festival. She is delightful – and so is her artwork!
Lyric: How did you come to be an artist?
Lisa: I’ve always dabbled but the realities of life took priority for many years. My neighbour introduced me to the joys of patchwork but I couldn’t follow rules or copy other peoples designs. Once I was given my first pack of hand dyed fabric I was hooked. When I started to dye my own, the possibilities opened up. I started to design my own quilts and this just kept taking up more and more of my brain space.
When my children started living their own lives and obligations like mortgages and school fees faded away, my pressures and restrictions lessened too. My creative endeavours led to teaching which I love as well as the friendships of like minded souls. Of course the total support of my husband played an enormous role and eventually I was able to leave the hated day job to just create, teach and exhibit my work. One day my husband was filling out passport forms for me (he loves forms) and when it came to my occupation , he wrote ARTIST! That simple action settled it for me and now I say it with pride and conviction.
Lyric: Why textiles as a medium?
Lisa: I love the flexibility of textiles, the colours, textures and the interesting problems working in them creates. I prefer the process rather than the end result and rarely repeat anything.
Lisa will be teaching at the Quilters Studio in Newbury Park California (http://www.quiltersstudio.com) in April. Take a look at Lisa’s Website to explore more of the lovelies she creates… and if you are down under yourself – she has a fabulous shop full of all kinds of supplies for your own textile art, beading, and surface design explorations.
I have a wonderful copy of Lisa’s book, Beautiful Building Block Quilts to give away.
If you are a traditional quilter and want to take your first steps towards creating your own designs this is a wonderful book for you. You can choose to learn by following her patterns exactly or you can read her guidelines for branching out on your own. She guides you through creating your own geometric block patterns and also includes a few very clear and easy to understand pages about color choices. You can purchase it here if you want a new copy. This one is signed to me and somehow has a few chocolate stains here and there on a page or two. Chocolate and quilt books naturally go together right? I should be more careful. You should also check out the other cool stuff Lisa has in her on-line shop… remembering that she is in Australia. Also – friend her on FaceBook so that you can easily keep up with what she is doing.
Leave me a comment and tell me something. Oh – I don’t know – anything. What is the first thing you would visit if you got to go to Australia? Or – if you’ve already been there – what should I see first? I’ll pick a winner in one week.
