New Website for Patchwork Design Brazil

Check out the new website for the Patchwork Design expo in Brazil. Click here.  Look at the artists page to find information about some of your friends and favorite Northwest quilters!
 

Video of Patchwork Design, Rio de Janeiro

Geology 4

Bonnie Bucknam

Photo by Mark Frey

A viedo of the Patchwork Design show in Rio de Janeiro is now available on YouTube.  Click here to view.

More Quilt Exposure in Brazil

Fracture by Bonnie Bucknam

Photo by Mark Frey

I just ran across this promotional video for Patchwork Design 2013 in Brazil.  My quilt Fracture was used for some of the 2012 show promotional materials.  I knew that the poster for the show was on buses in Rio de Janiero.  But in this video, they also show the advertisements in the subway!  I also noticed that my quilt Reflection is being used as the backdrop for some of the Sao Paulo Patchwork Design 2013 promotion.  Pretty cool!

Reflection by Bonnie Bucknam

Photo by Mark Frey

News Video of Sao Paulo Patchwork Design

The Patchwork Design show went to Sao Paulo this past weekend.  Here's a link to a news segment on the show.  Click here.

My Quilt on 100 Buses in Rio de Janeiro!

My quilt on a bus in Rio de Janeiro!

My quilt, Fracture, was on 100 buses in Rio de Janeiro last week!  Fracture won the Viewer's Choice award at last year's Patchwork Design show in Rio and Sao Paulo.  It was chosen for the promotional materials for this year's show.  So I have the banner on the show webpage, bookmarks and calendars. And 100 city buses in Rio!

Fracture

Bonnie Bucknam

Photos by Mark Frey

Fracture, detail

Bonnie Bucknam

Calendar and bookmark for Patchwork Design 2012 featuring

Fracture by Bonnie Bucknam

The Weekend in Rio

Saturday morning, Colleen and I gave our slide presentations at the Rio Patchwork Design show.  Above is Colleen signing autographs, just like a rock star.

This was my first presentation to a quilt group!  "Sticks and Stones" was an exploration of my design processes in creating my Tangle and Geology series.  I found out later that our talented interpreter, Astrid, has a sister who is a quilter and had lived in Vancouver!  Small world...

  

Here are Colleen and I with some folks who come up from Sao Paulo each year for the show.

With Zeca, Patchwork Design's producer, in front of my quilts.

Zeca does a beautiful job displaying the quilts.  Zeca's mother sews many of the quilts to a black background, which is then framed with a black metal frame.  The result is spectacular.  It gives the exhibit a wonderful coherence. 

After a lovely afternoon "talking" (suprisingly effective even when one speaks less than ten words in Portuguese) to the show visitors about our quilts, we took a stroll along the lake before grabbing a cab back to the hotel.  We had a great evening at Bartholomew's.  We're starting to feel like regulars there. 

Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas

Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas

Sunday morning started with a walk through the neighborhood to the Parca Gal. Orsorio. 

This is a view down the Rua Visconde de Piraja, the main shopping street just a couple of blocks from out hotel.

We spent a good part of Sunday at the flea market.

Fruits and vegetables of carved wood.

Hand-bound books

Metal jewelry that is wonderful, whimsical and goth all at the same time

I braved the subway for the second time to go to a small museum displaying items from the indigenous groups, Museu do Indio.

From that neighborhood I got my first glimpse of a favela, one of the shanty towns built up on many of Rio's hillsides.

Also in this neighborhood was the Museu Villa Lobos, the president's house before the capitol moved to Brasilia.

The architecture of Rio displays many different styles and influences, often within one city block.

Inside a metro station

On the way home, walking from the subway to the hotel, I got my first glimpse of the Cristo Redentor, Christ the Redeemer, on the top of Corcovado Mountain. Up until that day it had been raining or there were clouds covering the mountaintop.  You can barely see the statue at the top of the mountain between the trees.  The statue is 38 meters (125 feet) tall.   The mountain is 2310 feet in elevation.

I walked along the beach at Ipanema.  Unlike the first day here, this Sunday the beach was jam packed.

A margarita and dinner at, you guessed it!, Bartholomew's topped off the evening.

Quilts in Rio!

Melisse Laing's piece at the Rio Patchwork Design 2012 show in Rio de Janeiro

Bom dia from Rio de Janeiro!  Colleen and I arrived last Thursday.  Our driver took us from the airport to our hotel to drop off our bags then straight to the quilt show (well, with one shopping stop in between).  How exciting!  My quilts were first on the wall straight ahead as you enter the show, with Colleen's next.  Melisse's quilt was beautifully hung in its own alcove next to the introduction to the Rio Patchwork Design 2012 show.  We met Alvaro and Zeca, and were given a personal tour.

Reflection, View Toward Indio, and Coastlines (left to right), by

Bonnie Bucknam

Zeca has done a beautiful job of hanging the show.  The show is held in an older convention center, and some of the exhibit spaces are odd shapes which are difficult to work with.  But Zeca has turned these rooms into artful gallery spaces, with great lighting, colorful and tasteful accent walls, generous spacing between works, and good signage.  And good artwork! Zeca has curated a wonderful show.  Besides the quilts from CQA in Washington, several Brazilian quilters were represented.

Grey Circles, Introducing Entropy, and Yosemite Triptych by Colleen Wise

 Pieces by Mariann Burr

 Pieces by Sonja Gasvik.  Janet Kurjan's work is further down the wall.

 Melisse Laing's quilts

Work by Carol Jerome in the foreground

From the quilt show, we walked back to our hotel,  It was drizzling - felt just like home.  Well, not... For one thing, it was about 85 degrees. We saw a Great Egret right on the canel, just a few blocks from our hotel in Ipanema.

The beach was deserted.

But we walked along that famous Ipanema Beach sidewalk.
 

And after dinner at Bartholomew's, we did some window shopping. Not a bad day in Rio!