What Really Mattered in 2025......part two
- loisparishevans
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Part one of What Really Mattered in 2025 seemed to focus on international exhibitions but what is also important to me is being involved in the local or national art/ textile art scene.
Bookending 2025, the year began with being part of a local group Pop Up exhibition, the "Summer Art" exhibition, at the People's Gallery, Historic Village; a group of six local artists exhibiting together all with very different mediums of work - painting, sculpture, jewellery and textile art. 2025 finished with another Pop Up exhibition "The Space Between"at the same gallery with four of the original exhibitors and two new ones. Great to be exhibiting with other local artists and being the holiday season it brought in local and international tourists.
In 2024 I was invited to be part of a collaborative with a Japanese textile artist who had gifted two of her handmade kimonos for a Tauranga quilter to create a piece from. Tauranga and Hitachi are sister cities and for the past x number of years Hitachi has invited Tauranga quilters/textile artists to participate in their annual exhibition and I have had a number of art quilts included in previous exhibitions. The 2025 exhibition was the last and so it was timely to have this collaboration to acknowledge the friendship between the two cities. I loved the process of researching, designing and creating the elements. However, although I love silk as a fabric and have worked a lot with silk in the past, it was was a difficult work to pull together and I ended up hand quilting, much easier than free machine quilting. Maybe the one and only time I completely hand quilt a piece!!
On to the next collaborative project:
In 2025 the President of Aotearoa Quilters issued a challenge to the regions of NZ to create a quilt that depicted their area. The Eastern Bay of Plenty Regional AQ took this challenge on and I was involved mostly in the designing, the background and bringing together the different elements created by the members of the region. It was definitely a challenge, as our region spreads from Waihi Beach to Tauranga to Whakatane to Rotorua and south to Taupo. The only stipulation was that the final piece had to fit into a 150cm square. As challenging as it was I feel it was a great way to bring our region together, and formed the basis of the revival of the Regional group.
Teaching local workshops is also a way to connect to being part of the local/national scene and a way of passing on skills. It matters to me that those looking for creative input from my workshops find their own creative voice and so my workshops are focussed on allowing individual participants to explore art quilting in an environment that is safe and nurturing.
Apart from being involved in group exhibitions such as the 'Fibre' exhibition at the Matter Gallery, the Great NZ Quilt Show, Art Quilt Australia,and being a guest exhibitor at the Motueka Quilt Show, the Bay of Plenty had their second BoPOpen Studios 25 and I was selected to be part of the 70+artists opening their studios to the public. Open Studio's appear to be the new and popular way to exhibit and a way to bring the general public in to view one's work. It is a great way to be part of the local Art scene and for visitors to see a working artists environment, for visitors to have the opportunity to chat about the work or the medium and last but not least, for sales. It matters to me to be able to talk to people about what textile art is, and what my work is about.
There are still other opportunities that I haven't touched on but I want to finish with what is one of the most important parts of the creative journey for me...
What matters to me the most is being able to create - I recently found a great quote "Look for what you notice but no-one else sees." Rick Rubin. I never have a shortage of ideas and inspirational photos to choose from, just a shortage of execution time but I also wonder if I had all the time in the world whether I would still only get the same amount done!! Sometimes less time means having to be very organised with time management.... I did get a record number of textile art pieces completed in 2025, I gave up counting at 34....
And finally, what also matters and goes hand in hand with being able to create - being able to share what I create and hope that you enjoy taking a piece of my creativity in through your eyes, heart and maybe home. Thank you for the conversations, the likes, the comments, the positive feedback and if you took a piece home thank you from the bottom of my heart. And thank you for getting to the end of this blog!
