The Art of Joan Schulze Poetic Licence

A few days ago I asked my husband if he could give me an example of something that was obscure, his reply: "the way you look for connections between things when there aren't any".

But here is an example of something that has definite connections with this project. In November 2008, Joan visited me and asked me to write an essay to be included in a catalogue to her retrospective exhibition to be held in February 2010. By June this year the catalogue had become a book: The Art of Joan Schulze, Poetic Licence which will be published at the end of January and it will contain my essay, 'A Poetics of Cloth, Paper, Stitch and Line'.

But I know I still haven't explained how this project is connected to the overarching subject of this blog which focuses on a study of interconnections and the work of three quiltmakers: Judy McDermott, Pamela Fitzsimons and Emma Rowden.

In September 2000 I visited Judy in the old gold-mining town of Hill End, where she was the artist-in-residence at Haefligers' Cottage . Early the first morning and over a cup of tea, Judy asked me if I had seen the work of Joan Schulze (Judy had visited the States earlier that year and had bought a book of Joan's work, the first volume of The Art of Joan Schulze). As we looked through images of Joan's work together Judy suggested I could contact Joan as part of the research I was doing for my masters.

I 'googled' Joan when I got home and finding an email address, sent her an email. Within a couple of hours I had a reply and from Joan herself...And so a dialogue began: emails and letters, a first meeting in San Francisco when I visited Joan in her studio. Joan visited Australia the following year and Judy, Pamela and I (plus others) were in a workshop she gave at Lake Keepit near Tamworth.

Joan later selected an essay of mine to be included in another of her catalogues but this is the first time I have work published in a book , one with hard covers (although it is also to be published in softcover form).

So one thing leads to another and I have Judy to thank for introducing me to Joan's work.