Twelve Times Twelve Times Twenty Times ?

Goodness!  When we started our Twelve by Twelve challenge back in the fall of 2007, we had no idea that it would bring us to where we are.  288 12-inch square quilts... 60 20x12 inch quilts... A book... Magazine articles ... Exhibits all over the world... Friends and fans who know our work and have emailed us and come up to us at shows to tell us how we've inspired them... Opportunities to lecture and teach... Challenge groups modeled after ours...  It has been an amazing 5 years.

I think all of us would say that, for all of the fun and inspiration we've experienced over this period, the best part has been the community we have formed together.  We've not just become art partners to share our creative passions, explorations and frustrations -- we've become fast friends.  Some of us haven't met in person, but we've discovered that that little fact hardly matters.  We KNOW each other, and we are well and truly bonded by this experience.

We've just concluded the five 12x20 inch challenge set.  As always, Brenda has done an amazing job of putting the images together on our website, and you can see them all together here.

After four years of working with a 12x12 inch square, I think we all enjoyed -- and were challenged by -- a different format.  Our color themed challenge set will be traveling for exhibits in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the US in 2013.  (You can see the schedule here.)

But that brings us to now, and the question we keep getting:

What next? 

Well, we're working on that.  We have decided a few things.  We do not want to do periodic challenges the way we have been.  We want to work in a larger size.  Some of us may not continue, needing to turn their creative energies to a different direction.  But many of us are dedicated to doing SOMETHING together. We just haven't yet nailed down the specifics.

So while Twelve by Twelve as you've seen us may be changing, rest assured that we don't plan on  disbanding or disappearing totally.  We're evolving.

Watch this space.  We will keep you posted.

Twelve by Twelve Minor Website Metamorphosis

Our first challenges quilts in the 2012 Series can now be viewed on the website on the new Metamorphosis page.You will see that, with the change to the 20x12in format, our mosaics have morphed into a slightly new format too:

Over on the Twelve by Twelve website, there have also been a few changes. Here are some new features that you might enjoy:

• we have added a new About page that covers a few frequently asked questions that often come up;
• there's a new 2012 Series Gallery Page that sets out our timetable for 2012; 
• the main gallery pages for the Theme Series and the Colorplay Series each have an array of 144 clickable thumbnails that take you directly to the page with the artist statement and enlarged image of the relevant quilt;
• the Media page has been expanded to include a listing of podcasts and vidcasts featuring the Twelves and our project;
• the Exhibitions page has been moved to its own tab in the navigation menu so you can easily find out where to see the next exhibition and also see details of other exciting events that the Twelves are involved in; and
• there is a new Artist Gallery for the 2012 Series where you will be able to see all of the 20x12in challenge works completed by each Twelve grouped together. For example, here is Gerrie's 2012 Series Artist Gallery.

The website is now made up of close to 400 separate pages so it's possible that it needs tweaking here and there.  Please let Brenda know if you come across any broken links or other glitches.

New Twelve by Twelve Blog Button

With the completion of the Colorplay series and the announcement of our new challenge for 2012, it seems like time for a new blog button. You are welcome to cut and paste this code.  The top button is 200 pixels wide.  The other one is 175 pixels wide.

  <a href="http://twelveby12.blogspot.com"><img src="http://tinyurl.com/12button2012" border="0" title="Twelve by Twelve:The International Art Quilt Challenge" alt="Twelve by Twelve:The International Art Quilt Challenge"/></a>   <a href="http://twelveby12.blogspot.com"><img src="http://tinyurl.com/12button2012-175" border="0" title="Twelve by Twelve:The International Art Quilt Challenge" alt="Twelve by Twelve:The International Art Quilt Challenge"/></a>

We're not going anywhere!

We have so appreciated the lovely comments we've gotten after our "gray" challenge, but one subject has been mentioned to us rather frequently:  the belief that we're folding up our tents and stealing away.

NOT SO!  Actually, Terry's announcement of orange as our last challenge referred to our last Colorplay challenge!  Trust me, discussions are going on behind the scenes as to what we'll do next.  We do not know what form our next challenge will take, or whether all twelve will continue -- but rest assured there will be something going on.  We've all loved our creative explorations together so much and want to figure out what excites us the most as we move forward.

Meanwhile, we're all working on (because thinking and mulling counts as part of the work, you know) our "orange" challenge.  Helen, Francoise and I will be at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in early August with the exhibit of all 144 quilts from the first challenge rounds.  And we're excitedly preparing for an exhibit of both challenge sets (yep, that's 288 quilts) in Houston in November, 2011.

So if we're a bit distracted, we hope you'll understand.  But we'll let you know when we know how we're going to challenge ourselves next! 

Diane

Reminder about Blog Subscription Options

Yes!  our Lorikeet Colourplay quilts will start to appear online on 1 September (US time).

Remember you can subscribe to the RSS feeds of our posts and comments or you can sign up to receive our blog updates by e-mail by entering your e-mail address in the form below and following the prompts (no special account or login required):

An Exciting Week!

This is an exciting week. Thursday, 29 April is the opening of the Australasian Quilt Convention and the very first public exhibition of all 144 quilts from the Theme Series.  Kirsty and I will be accompanying the exhibition and giving floortalks as follows:

• 9am, Thursday 29 April - AQC delegates only
• 1pm, Saturday 1 May - all welcome!

Please come and say hello and perhaps even buy a special set of Twelve by Twelve postcards:

Then on Saturday 1 May (Sunday 2 May Australian time), we will be sharing the next Colourplay challenge - Kilauea.  Remember you can subscribe to the RSS feeds of our posts and comments or you can sign up to receive our blog updates by e-mail by entering your e-mail address in the form below and following the prompts (no special account or login required):

Next Pick!

I just thought I'd throw out the reminder that after we reveal our blue/white/black pieces on March 1, it will be Kristin's turn to define the next Colorplay challenge! 

Got any ideas, Kristin?!?!

New Blog Button & Celebratory Giveaway

With the completion of our first series of challenges and 144 wonderful art quilts, it's time for a new blog button that features the work of the challenge host for each theme:

You are welcome to add the button to your website or blog sidebar. Here is the code that you can cut and paste:

<a href="http://twelveby12.blogspot.com/">
<img src="http://serendipitypatchwork.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/12blogbutton2009.jpg" alt="Twelve by Twelve group blog" title="Twelve by Twelve group blog" border="0"/></a>

And, in case you are just joining the party, we are celebrating the completion of our first series of Theme works by sharing some light-hearted awards. Starting on October 12th, we will each post highlighting some of our favorite surprising and silly quilts. We invite our readers to think about what quilts you'd give these awards to and come back to let us know in the comments on those days. Everyone that leaves a comment on these posts goes into a draw to win some freshly minted postcards featuring the theme mosaic shown on our new blog button.

So far Gerrie has presented the "Also Ran" award and Helen has shared "The One I Wish I Had Made...". Coming up are:

• October 14th: Kirsten: Separated at Birth
• October 15th: Terry: Most Creative Use of Materials
• October 16th: Diane: Most Likely to Get Pulled Over By The Quilt Police
• October 17th: Françoise: Biggest Stretch of the Theme
• October 18th: Kristin: How DID She Do That?
• October 19th: Karen: Most Colorful
• October 20th: Brenda: I Would Never Have Guessed (Biggest Departure of Style)
• October 21st: Terri: Most Humorous
• October 22nd: Nikki: Most Bling
• October 23rd: Deborah: Most Unexpected

Welcome to the festivities - do leave a comment!

Poll Results

The results are in!

Last Chance to Vote!

The poll in our blog side bar closes in just a few hours. At present, Dandelion is way out in front as the favourite collaborative quilt mosaic so far but maybe there will a last minute surge for one of the other themes. (Statistics can be fun, and may provide some inspiration for our next theme of "Mathematics".)

At the same time as the poll closes, we will be closing the celebration draw for some special Twelve by Twelve notecards. It's not to late for you to leave a comment so that your name can go into the draw.

Let's celebrate!

Our latest challenge quilts have started to appear online - only two to go! When we started this collaborative art quilt project a year ago, we had little inkling of how much fun it would be for us. We also hope our readers have enjoyed following our challenges with us.

The "reveal" of our shelter quilts marks the midpoint in our challenge timetable. To help us celebrate this milestone, we invite our readers to leave a comment by no later than 15 October (blog time) to go into a draw for a special set of notecards featuring some of our collaborative theme mosaics:





While you are at it, you can vote in the poll in the sidebar. Let us know what is your favourite collaborative theme mosaic so far!

Next Theme

Here is the next theme for the time period of August through September.


NOUN
shelter (plural shelters)
1. A refuge, haven or other cover or protection from something
2. An institution that provides temporary housing for homeless people, battered women etc.

VERB
to shelter
1. (transitive) To provide cover
2. (intransitive) To take cover

A Light Bulb Moment

From the outset of this collaborative art quilt project, I have been collecting theme ideas waiting for this day! Themes so far have been botanical (dandelion), gastronomical (chocolate), sociological (community) and elemental (water) but that left me plenty of scope.

After we've all had a turn at choosing the theme (you have a long wait Terry!), it would be interesting to compare our respective short lists. Certainly, I had no shortage of ideas but I was still feeling a little anxious about choosing the "right" one to run with that had not been used excessively before*. Then, in a flash of inspiration, I had a new word and our next theme:

Illumination:

1. (a) The act of illuminating or (b) The state of being illuminated.
2. A source of light.
3. Decorative lighting.
4. Spiritual or intellectual enlightenment.
5. Clarification; elucidation.
6. (a) The art or act of decorating a text, page, or initial letter with ornamental designs, miniatures, or lettering or (b) An example of this art.
7. Physics The luminous flux per unit area at any point on a surface exposed to incident light. Also called illuminance .

In keeping with this word, I hope you will shed some light on your creative process by blogging as much as you feel comfortable with (short of the final piece) as you explore this theme. The next due date is Friday 1 August (California/blog time).

* My anxiety was not entirely misplaced. "Stories" was high on my short list and I see that it is also the Take it Further Challenge for June.

Next Theme!

Brenda, you're up next to decide on the theme, you know, and whether you want it "open" or "closed" for progress along the way!

Labels on our Quilts

Have any of you been putting quilt labels on the backs of your quilts? I'm thinking of doing this for each of my 12x12 quilts and am wondering what kind of information you are including. I had thought of putting something on the label about it being for the 12x12 challenge, and of course I'd add the date and my name. Just wondering how any of you were doing this.

Open community?

Oh -- with our new "community" theme, shall we try doing this as an "open" challenge, so that people can feel free to talk about what they're thinking and doing all along? We talked earlier about giving it a try this time and then seeing how it goes and whether it's helpful to share our thoughts and processes along the way.

I'd like to try this, but I'd suggest that maybe we share everything but the final, finished image -- which would still be revealed on March31/April 1?

Is that okay with you all?

Open or Secret?

Francoise and I had an email exchange recently where we got to talking about how everyone has kept their processes very quiet this time around, after some discussion and sharing ahead of time last time. I know that from my point of view, seeing the final quilts revealed was so exciting and fun, and all the more because I had no idea what everyone was going to do.

And this time, my own silence has been in part because I've been so unfocused and uncertain, and in part because I didn't want to start leaning one way or another because of what someone else would do. And, of course, I'm susceptible to being intimidated by the vast amount of creativity here.

But at any rate, Francoise and I were thinking that it was curious how we've all refrained from posting anything that might show the ideas we're exploring or the processes we're using. It adds to the mystery and excitement, but it does hamper the sharing and learning and discussion all along that could be really fun. Maybe we could use the challenge and group experience to learn from each other and develop different ideas than we'd do alone, or get suggestions and try some new things because of input from someone else.

So I had an idea: For the next challenge period, would you all be willing to try an "open" process? No secrets--we'd blog on the list about our thought processes and research and ideas and work in progress... It'd be, of course, less mysterious and surprising at the end, but maybe we'd find that it'd be more conducive to learning and spring-boarding to other ideas and processes?

I thought if we tried it totally open one time, that might give us an idea for how we want to proceed in the future....not that it has to be all one way or the other, and not that we can't each do what we want individually anyway, but I thought it might be useful to see how you all feel about the topic generally and maybe try an all-out "open" challenge next time to see where that takes us...

So, what do you all think???

And the next challenge theme...

While some of us are still working on our chocolate quilts (ahem), I thought I'd remind everyone that as we're progressing alphabetically, Kristin is up next to choose the next challenge theme.

So get thinking, Kristin!

Dandelion Quilt Gallery

Our collection of dandelion-inspired art quilts can now be viewed on the gallery pages of the Twelve by Twelve website:

If you would like to add the website button to your sidebar, here is the code that you can cut and paste:

<a href="http://www.twelveby12.org/"><img src="http://serendipitypatchwork.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/12button.gif" title="Twelve by Twelve:The Website" /></a>

The button looks like this:

As always, please do not hesitate to e-mail me if you require assistance with the button code or if you notice something is not working on the website.

24 November Update: The image url for the website button was updated today and you may need to update your code accordingly so that the button shows up properly in Firefox.

And another thought . . .

Sorry, I'm on a roll tonight.

I was just thinking about how to post these things. I think it would look great if we agreed on a format and each post was formatted the same way.

Here's my suggestion:
Name the post (your name)'s Dandelion, ie "Terry's Dandelion". Post the photo, centered. If we each post a photo that is 400 pixels by 400 pixels, that is a good size for the blog and all will be the same size. Then, below the photo, write whatever statement you want to make about the piece, as well as its name if it has one. Diane suggested we post between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2.