Get to know The Guild by meeting our talented members! We have interesting and inspiring members all over the country doing amazing sewing and we want you to be able to share their work.

Meet Guild and Contemporary Quilt member, Mike Wallace.

What are you working on now? 

I have recently completed a piece called ‘Flying Free’ which is currently hanging in a local café, ‘The Pop In Tearoom’ at Winton House. As to current projects, I often get inspired to create pieces by current affairs such as politics or the environment. In progress right now is a piece relating to global warming and the melting of glaciers, as a follow up to a single completed piece on this theme, entitled ‘Glacier Melt’. The new work in progress will be a triptych called ‘Glaciers over time’, in part inspired by a tapestry weaving on this subject which I created a few years ago (I am also a tapestry weaver), called ‘Pain of the Glaciers’. This had a hidden movement sensor embedded in it, so that when people walked past this activated a small device that played a thirty second clip of sounds from inside a glacier.

What is your favourite contemporary quilt that you’ve ever made? 

This piece was inspired by a creativity exercise in a tapestry weaving workshop. Re-interpreting the original idea from my sketchbook to translate the feeling and colours of the piece resulted in my scouring my stash to use pieces of textiles created often over 15 years ago. The outcome, ‘Bits and Pieces’ will be on display at Festival in 2022.

 

Who are your quilting heroes?

These people have to be the two tutors who have shared and shaped a large part of my journey into textiles. Jae Maries provided the original welcome and inspiration, but – in quilting/textiles, it has been Leslie Morgan and Claire Benn (both of Committed to Cloth) who have provided all the support and challenge ever required.

Can you recommend a good quilting read?

There are a few novels that have come to my attention, but more practical books that have been of great value over the years are the series written by the aforementioned Claire and Leslie. Good background, clear explanations, lots of practical tips and ideas. One especially in terms of developing as an artist, is ‘Finding Your Own Visual Language’, by Jane Dunnewold, Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan, published by Committed to Cloth in 2007.

What do you love about The Guild and your membership of the Contemporary Quilt special interest group?

Being a member of the Contemporary Quilt special interest group, with its quarterly magazine and stand at The Festival of Quilts, provides ideas, inspiration, and the challenge to be creative in different ways. For me, the best thing about The Quilters’ Guild is their involvement in and presence at The Festival of Quilts – the opportunity to see, in one place, such a variety of amazing creativity and quality execution.