South Africa was invited to join France and Japan in a Challenge, the theme being 'Movie Director's'. 30 people from each country were invited and then 5 Movie Directors from each country and 15 other's were chosen as the 'theme' directors. One person from each country was allocated the same movie director and had to create a 50cm x 50cm piece. Result - 90 quilts, 3 quilts on each Movie Director. My director was Alain Resnais who I knew nothing about. Turned out one of his more famous films was Hiroshima my love ( Hiroshima mon amour) which I thought was quite apt in linking the three countries together..... Japanese theme, French Director and SA Maker! The background is a whole cloth which I screen printed. Alain's face is a piece of handmade silk paper, machine embroidered and painted. the 'Dome' is applique and then stitched and painted. The quilting is 'pebbles' or 'pearls' .....not sure what it is called, representing the millions of broken pieces after the attack, buildings and people! What annoys me horribly but I have to work thru it as it cannot be changed is the slant of the writing. I used freezer paper cut outs to stencil and thought I had it perfect , aggravated with the quilting and the slant of the building .... ouch!
Great fun and a little daunting as I have never participated in anything as big as this.
The first showing of the Challenge was at the IQW2010 Show in Japan and it won Best Group Exhibition. It now travels in Japan, then France plus other countries and we in SA only get to see the whole exhibit ( although we do have pics) sometime in 2011 or 2012.