In the last post, we tried to become aware of what our eyes did when they looked at a quilt, and I gave you some questions that related to that task.
 
Here’s the quilt again to refresh your memory.

​And here are my observations about my eye’s journey:

• My eye goes first to the largest horizontal applique block in the middle of the quilt. It goes there because the light background fabric draws my eye, and because it is bigger than the other light blocks, I also think, because the horizontal orientation provides stability of that block in the whole conglomeration of blocks.
• Next, my eye does a quick loop through the quilt, following the other light, narrow applique blocks.  The horizontal and vertical orientations facilitate this; they are almost little arrows.
• After that, my eye goes more slowly through the 3 big, stable, square star blocks and returns to the one with the gold background, probably because it's the lightest and simplest and cleanest of the three. 
• Then I hop around, finding the other blocks with gold elements.
• Finally, I focus on the blocks that have softer, subtler color gradations, ending up at the big snails trail block, probably because it's the biggest. I follow the spiral around for a bit.
• The dark green inner border initially stops the motion of my eye, but the broken corner treatment lets my eye escape and keep moving.
• Feeling? To me, the quilt has a controlled energy.  The overall darker fabrics are lightened up by the gold and the applique backgrounds. The applique motifs add lightness to an otherwise very solid collection of blocks. The borders ground and stabilize the whole thing. Flirty and grounded, all at once. Cool.

Have we used any design terms yet?  No, not really, but we've certainly touched on what could easily be turned into an evaluation of some aspects of the design. Allow me to translate into Judge:

• Careful value placement provides a strong visual path through the quilt.
• Light applique blocks provide unity, while mixed vertical and horizontal orientations of the applique blocks add energy, direction and movement to the composition.
• Placement of subtle, gradated colors in muted blocks throughout the quilt is an effective foil for the high contrast pieced blocks with strong, clean lines.
• Delicate applique motifs provide needed detail and whimsy for this strong composition.
• Borders provide an appropriate frame for the blocks while offset corner treatment maintains airiness and charm.

Any of these could be a decent comment on a judging sheet. And all that from just paying attention to where your eye goes and asking yourself why!

In these comments, I’ve hit on contrast, movement, unity, variation in scale, variety and line. These are certainly not the only design elements and principles at work in this quilt, and they are not the only comments that could be formulated from my observations.

They may not even be the best ones…..maybe you’ll come up with those!

At the bottom of this post I've included three additional quilts, in three different styles.  Try answering the same questions for each quilt. This is a technique that is pretty useful, no matter the style. 
 
Feel free to post your ideas in the comments section of this post. I would love to hear what you have to say. Refer to the numbers under each photo. 
 
Next: What’s Important
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Stacy Koehler, Secretary, NACQJ
NQA Certified Judge
Qualified to Evaluate Masterpiece Quilts

​How do we step up to design and color?

Most quilters want to step up. Many feel insecure about their fabric and color choices. They may stick to patterns because someone else has handled all that design stuff for them.

And judges and candidates? You don’t have a choice, you have to step up. Color and design are among the most difficult areas to gain facility with on the road to being a good certified judge. It needs more from us than determining if all the points in a group of star blocks on the quilt are sharp or cut off.

I have done my share of interest surveys within my guild and for events I have organized and I can tell you that color and design are always near the top of the list of things quilters want to learn more about.

So a class or lecture is scheduled. People attend. The presenter steps up and….. the presenter usually pulls out a color wheel or begins to list the elements of design.

And having been the teacher or lecturer plenty of times, I can tell you that within, at best, 2 minutes, the eyes of maybe 75% of the audience have glazed over and their heart and breathing rates have dropped to something normally seen in a state of semi-consciousness. The remaining 25% will have joined them by the 10 minute mark. It takes a highly motivated student to stick with your standard color and design presentation.

Face it: color and design are intimidating topics to learn and verbalize and more intimidating to manipulate confidently in your quilts.

I don’t think it has to be that way. At some point in art history, commonly agreed upon words evolved that gave people a vocabulary with which to discuss color and design.  It was great to have these words because color and design are, at heart, very abstract things and the words provided a tool for conversation.

Color and design themselves did not come into existence when the words finally showed up. They were already there, visible and observable, with their visual and emotional impact, before anyone ever said 'tertiary color' or 'crystallographic symmetry.'

But the design and color words, what most classes and lectures start with, are not the first step.

First you have to learn to look.

Think of it as learning a language. You come to class.  There is a picture of a lamp. You then see or hear the Russian word for lamp. You connect the Russian word to the visual cue of the lamp and your understanding of what a lamp is, and your Russian vocabulary just increased.

This would not be the case if you did not see the lamp, if instead someone just kept repeating the Russian word at you or showing you a flash card of the word lamp written in the Cyrillic alphabet. You would have nothing to connect to the Russian word. Not only would you not learn anything, you would eventually become irritated and mentally check out.

Et voila! Glazed over and semi-conscious. Another educational triumph.

Before you can learn color and design, you have to see the picture of the lamp, so to speak.  You have to learn to notice design and color before any of the words have meaning for you. And here’s the good news: you probably already do. You just have to be aware of it. (I’m pretty sure that people who manage to get benefit from the study of design and color aren’t some kind of born artists, they just know how to look, which gives them a visual framework to hang the concepts on.  Oh, yeah, and they never really stop studying.)
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So in the interest of not going glassy-eyed and semi-conscious, we are going to begin to evaluate design and color, without any of the design and color words.

Let’s look at a quilt BUT don’t pay attention to the quilt.  Pay attention to what your eyes do while you look at the quilt. We are going to find the path through the quilt.

Before you look at the quilt below, read these questions and use them to help you pay attention to what your eye does when you finally get to look at the quilt. Do not attempt to decide if it's a good design or not, whether or not the colors work, what could be done better etc. etc.  None of that. No evaluation of the quilt. This is about what your eyes do, given the stimulus of the quilt.
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• Where do your eyes go first? Why there? Is it something about the color, the image? A level of detail? Sharpness, haziness? What draws the eye?
• What do you look at next? And next? Again, why? Is there a trail through the quilt?
• What stops your eye? Does it stop it for good or does some feature toss your eye back to something you've already viewed? Does it just keep bouncing around?
• What kind of feeling do you get from whatever your eyes are doing?

 
 OK, now you can look at the quilt.

Next week I'm going to tell you what my eye does when I look at this, and why I think it does it.  I'm going to formulate some judge's comments based on my obsrvations, and then, and only then, will I  toss around some color and design words.

Next: Learning to See Design 2

Stacy Koehler, Secretary, NACQJ
NQA Certified Judge
Qualified to Evaluate Masterpiece Quilts
​​

​Sorry for the late post.  I just got back from Springfield, Illinois where I was lucky enough to be part of the judging team, along with Scott Murkin and Doris Goins, for the 2017 MQX Quilt Festival Midwest.  

In case you don't know, The MQX shows (www.mqxshow.com) are the work of Janet-Lee Santeusanio and Mary Schilke, both of whom are machine quilters, who had the insight that machine quilters needed an opportunity to exhibit their work, get together, teach, learn and generally whoop it up. Twice a year, these two, along with family and long term staff, load a whole lot of stuff into big vehicles, travel long distances, and set up as professional a show as you would find anywhere, from much larger organizations with way more staff. This show attracts not only frame (longarm) quilters but also domestic machine quilters as well as piecers from all over the country and abroad. Over the years, a wider range of classes have been offered, beyond the initial focus on machine quilting, to include topics such as use of social media in a quilting business and surface design techniques.

Oh, and while they were doing all that, they created their own point system to use for the quilt competition’s judging. Just like that….. well, maybe not just like that. They continually refine the system with input from Scott Murkin, a CJ who has been with the shows for 10 plus years and is the permanent head judge for the MQX shows.

Here’s my quick judging system review: There are basically two systems used in quilt show judging: Elimination and Points. The elimination system is the most common. Quilts are entered into categories. Each quilt in a category is evaluated by the judge(s). The quilts in the category are judged against each other, not against an ideal quilt. (This is another reason why a quilt may do very well in one show and not in another; the quilts it is competing against may be different from show to show, depending on what else was entered in that quilt’s category.) After the quilts have been evaluated, the less competitive quilts are released (eliminated) and the more competitive quilts are held for consideration for ribbons. First, second, third and honorable mention are selected from the held quilts.

In a point system, the judge(s) are working from a pre-determined list of judging areas and a quilt may be assigned a range of points based on how well each area is addressed by the quilt maker. The quilts are not judged against each other, but against the ideal quilt. The quilts may or may not be arranged in categories, but categories or not, the quilts with the most points are the ribbon winners.

Both systems have their strengths, weaknesses and adherents. As a judge, I was trained almost exclusively, and a little self-righteously, in the elimination system. I always had a vague feeling that point systems were set up to make the job of judging easier for the scribes, the judges, or for the general administration of the show. I often wondered if the point system was in the best interest of the entrant. So when I bravely assert that the point system developed by MQX to address the needs of a show dedicated to the art of machine quilting is awesome, it’s really saying something.

MQX has developed a system that does exactly what they need and want it to do, which is focus primarily on the overall workmanship of the quilt, with a slant on the quilting. There are 12 judging areas, with  1/3 of those about the usual judging concerns of design, color, construction, borders, finishing, etc. The rest are all about machine quilting (frame or domestic). Two thirds of the judges’ evaluation is focused on machine quilting. This is far more attention in this area than an entrant might get in other national shows. This means that more of the feedback that goes to the entrants of this specialized show addresses their personal or, in many cases, professional area of interest.

The judging team using this system is made up of three certified judges. Scott is on every team and not only knows the system inside out but has had creative input with regard to descriptions and judging criteria. The second judge is one who has previously worked for, and is experienced in, the MQX system. In general, the third judge is a rookie, who will then enter into the pool of potential second judges for future shows. In a time when the trend in show judging is to move toward smaller teams or solo judging, having three judges with the experience explained above, ensures that the points awarded are the product of combined expertise, built on solid experience.
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I honestly cannot think of a better way to do this. But what I think isn’t all that important, because I’m not tasked with tweaking the wording, addressing new trends, and making sure that the show judging remains relevant to the realities of the machine quilting industry. That’s their job, and they do it really, really well.

​Next: Learning to See...Design
 
Stacy Koehler, Secretary, NACQJ
NQA Certified Judge
Qualified to Evaluate Masterpiece Quilts
​