It was my great pleasure to attend the first ever SAQA UK meeting held yesterday in Milnrow, Lancashire. SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Association) are an US based organisation but they do have a couple of hundred members in Europe and 66 here in the UK. Whilst the organisation provides some really great exhibiting opportunities it is inevitably 'US-centric' and it can be difficult for those of us making very abstract work to break through. Christine Seager, one of the SAQA Europe Reps, has initiated the UK meetings to provide more targeted support for UK members both within SAQA and in their endeavours outside SAQA. If successful she hopes that the model can be rolled out across Europe. I suggested Milnrow as a suitable meeting hall that I have booked in the past for the Etcetera group. And, of course, I took along my coffee pot! Christine and Gillian Travis lead lively discussions on what SAQA means to its members and how the UK meetings can support and promote the growth of a professional quilt / textile artist community. There will be another meeting near London early next year and I really hope that many more SAQA members will attend.

Part of the discussion was on exhibiting opportunities. SAQA currently run a biennial exhibition for members in Europe and the Middle East called Wide Horizons. (My piece Storm 2 (Dark) is currently touring with Wide Horizons V and I was delighted to get my copy of the exhibition catalogue yesterday!). Christine has fought hard and got two more opportunities for European members. The first is called Made in Europe I and will tour in the US though 2017. It is the perfect opportunity for European work to be seen by tens of thousands American quilters. The second has yet to be officially announced but will be Made in Europe II and will be shown alongside the SAQA Tranquility and Turmoil exhibition at next summers Festival of Quilts.

Lots of people have asked how I am going to spend the £1000 award I received for winning the Art category at Festival of Quilts. Lots of encouragement to spend it on something for myself. Well I did spend £40 on a small piece of work by Rosie James but the rest of it is going into the studio 'pot'. Which definitely qualifies as something for myself! Although I treat my art just as seriously and (hopefully) as professionally as I do my day job the reality is that it does not pay. This is the first significant sum of money that has gone in the pot. And whilst I hope that it is not the last I do recognise that I am incredibly lucky that the money I earn in my day job allows me to work in the way that I want to and in the wonderful environment that is my studio. That said the unexpected income has 'allowed' me to order 60 metres of Cotton Poplin Delphina (from Whaleys of Bradford) rather than the usual 20 metres thus spreading the delivery charge out a bit. And it has 'allowed' me to invest in some new silkscreens. I typically buy one most years whilst I am at Festival of Quilts but, because I damage the occasional one, I only have 4 good screens at the moment. Which slows me down when I am breakdown printing as I only pull each screen a few times before cleaning it and remaking it. So I have invested in 10 new screens from Coated Screens Limited. Five at 14 x 20 inches and five rather large ones at 20 x 30 inches. Buying in bulk has reduced the cost considerably. Now I just need to figure out where to store them!

Up until now I have always been able to use my studio for photography. It has some white walls and very good natural light topped up with cool white fluorescent lighting. My photos have been OK. They have got some pieces into curated exhibitions. But photos of pieces from my very pale, ephemeral Still series have not been good enough. And now I have completed a piece that is just too big for me to photograph in my studio. Ruins 7 is 180cm wide by 249cm high.

At first I considered turning it through 90degrees, suspending it from the ceiling in my studio with some sort of backdrop suspended behind it. Hmm - not easy! Instead my son Cal borrowed a gallery space that at least allowed me to hang the piece against a white wall albeit still hung on it's side.

I found a great web article on photographing quilts (http://www.hollyknott.com/stq/) with lots of info on how to make your own lighting rig. After many fruitless hours I discovered that you can't buy really really bright compact fluorescent bulbs in cool white in the UK. Not to be put off Cal came up with a design using multiple lightfittings on two uprights. I brought wooden uprights and some shelf brackets to use as legs. Instead he borrowed some proper lights and a tripod off a friend. Clever lad!

And today we photographed the piece. Until now I have really only seen it on the bench. It looked great hung up and will look even better if I ever get to show it in a gallery with tall ceilings.

I'm not sharing an image of the whole piece as it is being submitted for an exhibition. However the detail shot above gives a good sense of the piece. Fingers crossed.

Those of you who read my blog will know that my day job became 'unsustainable' a short while ago so I find myself unemployed. I hate that word and prefer 'taking a career break' or 'taking time out to spend with my family' or 'taking a sabbatical to take advantage of an artists residency (in my own studio)'.  But whatever I call it the reality is that I need to find a new job. And apparently the most successful way to do that is by networking. Even the word fills me with horror - I am hopeless at small talk, generally useless at blowing my own trumpet and suffer a big 'I am not worthy' moment when I contemplate approaching somebody to give me a job. Does this sound familiar?

To give myself a head start I attended a workshop on LinkedIn and now have my profile set up and am busy making connections. Please feel free to look me up but don't be offended if I don't connect with you ... I'm trying to keep it limited to day job contacts initially. However the workshop did get me thinking about networking and my 'other life' as a textile artist. Whilst networking in this context isn't aimed at getting a job I am ambitious about my art and do want to get my work 'out there'. Building a network might lead to opportunities to exhibit or towards getting commissions. Although I didn't think of it in terms of networking my website, this blog and my Facebook page have been a good start. Being a member of CQ and SAQA was also a good start.

But one of the key takeaways from the workshop was to actively do whatever it takes to become visible, to be at the top of the list when somebody searches for you. Which, in terms of me as an artist, means making my Facebook page 'public', sending friend requests to people where we only have one or two mutual friends and not just those where we have lots of mutual friends. It means taking time out to steward on the SAQA exhibition at Festival of Quilts. And it means stopping being a 'lurker' on yahoo message groups and starting being a participant. It probably means starting to use Twitter and / or Instagram and / or Pinterest! Which definitely means I need a very large cup of very good coffee ... and probably some chocolate!!