WEBINAR: OCTOBER 11, 2023 at 7 pm ET Priscilla Bianchi will show us her country and culture through her textile creations. Tickets available now for both members ($10) and non-members ($15).
This inspirational slide lecture will appeal to quilters and non-quilters alike. Priscilla Bianchi, a native Guatemalan quilt artist, designer, author, and international teacher, shows us her country and her culture through her work. In this presentation, she will tell her amazing story as a quilt maker. Coming from a country where quilting is practically unknown, she’s had to overcome many obstacles in order to find her artistic voice and express it through the medium of textiles.
She will also share her main sources of inspiration, and show an overview of her multicultural, brightly-coloured, body of work.
With humor, entertaining stories and lots of insight, this lecture is sure to please audiences.
At age 4, Priscilla’s mother taught her how to sew using her grandmother’s Singer Treadle. At age 11, she took a class on how to use patterns to sew her own clothing and she hasn’t stopped sewing, creating, and designing since.
Despite studying and experimenting with different arts and crafts—drawing, painting, graphic design, stenciling, interior decorating, and needle arts like knitting, crochet, cross stitch, embroidery—nothing really stuck.
As well as her love for the arts was her love for education. She started teaching preschool kids in 1975. After graduating from College as an Industrial Psychologist in 1988 she began working in Human Resources. As the head of her own company she traveled Central America and the Caribbean training big company managers in leadership, assertive communication, teamwork, motivation, human relations, and other related topics. Although she loved every second of it, after ten years she was tired of the corporate world and felt a need to do something else.
In 1997, the quilting book Charm Quilts fell into her hands. She read the book from cover to cover in a couple of days, then began pulling out fabrics from her small stash and followed the instructions to make her first quilt. She remembers the feeling of urgency, wanting to finish it as fast as she could so she could start the next one, and the next one.
Priscilla knew early on that becoming a textile artist was her calling and that this would stay with her for the rest of her life… at the time she didn’t know it, but she was about to take a leap of faith that would change her life! Six months later, she quit her day job so she could stay home all day and sew. Many thought she had gone mad, but she was fascinated when she realized that art quilts brought together everything that she loves: fabrics, colours, sewing, art, design, creating, and being original.
Art is a journey and Priscilla’s art quilts are steps in a never-ending learning process towards a higher level of self-expression and spirituality. It’s not the destination, but the journey that makes everything she does worthwhile. Finding the Art of Quilting has given her spirit a voice, that speaks of her Guatemalan context, her roots, and her passion. Many doors have been opened for her and she is grateful to have such incredible experiences in her artistic career.
Priscilla’s presentation, An Accidental Quilter from an Unlikely Place!, will be hosted by CQA/ACC on Zoom at 7 pm ET on Wednesday, October 11, 2023.
Tickets are available now for both members ($10) and non-members ($15).
Priscilla will be teaching workshops at Quilt Canada 2024 in Edmonton, AB, June 20-22, 2024. More detail here.
