2023 Lectures

In 2023, the Orange County Modern Quilt Guild is excited to offer great programming for both members and guests! In order to feature speakers from around the country, the lecture portion of our meetings will be held via Zoom.

Guests are welcome to attend our special guest lectures for a $5 donation, payable via Zelle, or Check.

If you’re interested in attending any of our 2023 lectures, please contact the guild at ocmodernquiltguild@gmail.com

2023 Lectures

May 25th, 2023
Lecture: Color by Charles Cameron

This lecture will be held via Zoom

As an engineer, Charles approaches color selection and placement in quilts in a very methodical way. Color and value placement can be powerful tools, just as important as the orientation of geometric shapes and forms, to create a remarkable quilt design. Carefully chosen colors and patterns of color value can be used to add interest and depth. This lecture is for any quilter who is interested in becoming more adventurous with color or who may be curious about alternative ways of selecting colors for purchased quilt patterns or within their own designs. In this lecture, Charles will share several strategies that he employs for selecting fabric colors and their placement when planning his own quilts.

Guests are welcome to attend our special guest lectures for a $5 donation, payable via Zelle, or check.

June 29th, 2023
Lecture: Quilter’s Journey with Mona and Jonathan

In person lecture

July 27th, 2023
Lecture: Slave Era Quilts and the Underground Railroad

By Allyson Allen

This lecture will be held via Zoom

A retired high school teacher, Allyson now teaches adults at quilt guilds and quilt shows, lectures and curates exhibits of her own unique work. She uses traditional materials to create dimensional textile art, quilts, dolls, & handmade books. For over thirty years she has been exhibiting and
teaching quilting, doll making, and altered book art.
Her textiles combine art, craft, research, original design, history and culture in traditional and contemporary pieces exemplifying a cross-disciplinary approach to quilt making. Allyson’s work often references American and Black history, African folklore, or social issues. Her handmade quilts and
quilted journals usually incorporate recycled materials, fabric, found objects, and stitched paper elements. Allyson’s work has been published and exhibited in galleries, museums, and embassies around the world.
In three decades, Allyson has received over forty visual arts grants to create and exhibit her work. She is a Special Exhibitor, lecturer, and instructor for Mancuso National Quilt Shows, and is recognized by the state of California Arts Council as an award-winning Master African American
textile artist, twice nominated for NEA National Heritage Fellowship consideration.
Website – https://kuumba421.wixsite.com/quilts421

Guests are welcome to attend our special guest lectures for a $5 donation, payable via Zelle, or check.

August 31st, 2023
Lecture: Traditional, Art, Modern – Notes from a Field

By Maria Shell

This lecture will be held via Zoom

MARIA SHELL BIO

Maria Shell’s work is grounded in the tradition and craft of American quilt making. She strives to take the classical components of a traditional bedquilt and manipulate them with the hope of creating surprising combinations of pattern, repetition, and color for the viewer.

Maria is the recipient of a Sustainable Arts Foundation 2011 Winter Award, a Rasmuson Foundation Project Award and two Rasmuson Fellowships (2009, 2013, 2017). She has had several solo and small group shows including fiber at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts in Hamilton, Ohio, Right Lines & Circles at the Ormond Beach Memorial Art Museum and Gardens in Ormond Beach, Florida, Line + Shape at the Hello Stitch Studio in Berkeley, California, and The Pieced Canvas at the Visions Art Museum in San Diego, California. Her most recent solo exhibition is Off the Grid which was on view at the Shelburne Art Museum in Shelburne, Vermont from May—October 2022. Her first book Improv Patchwork—Dynamic Quilts Made with Line & Shape was published in 2017. You can see more of Maria’s work on her website http://mariashell.com or learn more about her process by visiting her blog http://talesofastitcher.com.

Guests are welcome to attend our special guest lectures for a $5 donation, payable via Zelle, or check.

Previous Lectures

2023

March 30th, 2023
Lecture: Jean Wells
This lecture was held via Zoom

“I have been quilting for the last thirty-nine years, writing books, and operating The Stitchin’
Post in Sisters, Oregon. During that time I have experimented with many different piecing
and quilting techniques and worked in series that became books and lectures sharing my ideas
with thousands of people. The latest “series” to become a book the summer of 2012 is
Journey to Inspired Art quilting. My quilts have been juried into many of the International
Quilt Festivals in Houston, the Pacific West Quilt Fest, Mancuso shows in San Francisco, and
reside in private collections.
I mostly cut free-hand, creating organic style line work. Recurring themes in my quilts have
to do with natural configurations –rocks, trees, grasses, flowers, and the landscape. They
are the common thread running through my mind as I work intuitively designing quilts letting
the design take on a shape of it’s own. Nature and the world around me is my main source of
inspiration. I am fascinated with line, pattern, color, and texture and how to design with
these elements. In this ongoing process exploration is my theme.
You can see my commissioned quilts at the Five Pine Conference Center, Sisters City Hall, and
Shibui Spa here in Sisters, Oregon; and Gateway Canyons in Colorado.
In July 2010, I became the 40th inductee into the Quilter’s Hall of Fame in Marion, Indiana.”

My favorite quote is “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

January 26th, 2023
Lecture: Amy Friend
this lecture was held via Zoom

Amy Friend is a former museum curator turned designer. She designs modern quilts and specializes in paper pieced designs. She authored the books Intentional Piecing (2016) and Improv Paper Piecing: A Modern Approach to Quilt Design (2017), and has a new book, Petal + Stem (2020). Since 2019, Amy has run a paper pieced Block of the Month program each year. She is an award winning quilter and her quilts have been exhibited at a number of quilt shows as well as museums. Amy is a national quilt teacher and lecturer. Amy lives in Massachusetts with her husband and three children. If she isn’t sewing or spending time with the family, you might find her in the garden.

2022