"Swimming Upstream" Featured in European Magazine!

Here is a copy of the article that will be in the summer issue of the European magazine "Pretty Patches" www.prettypatchesmagazine.com. When I looked up the magazine I knew immediately why they wanted to feature the series, "the color and the smile factor in the textile series"

In 1999, Bonnie Smith suffered an injury that left her with limited mobility for several years – an experience that would prove to be life-changing in more than one way.‘Not sure what to do with my days after I had caught up on all my reading,I turned my attention to sewing,’ she recalls. ‘It was something I hadn’t had the time to do in a long while.’ Bonnie took a quilting class near home, but discovered that certain aspects of traditional quilting weren’t for her. ‘I could not follow a quilting pattern as they simply did not make any sense to me, so I started creating one-of-a-kind quilts,’ she says. She made heirloom quilts for friends and family but soon found herself searching again for a new challenge. ‘From the quilting circles I belonged to I learned about fibre art and immediately knew that was what I wanted to do with my life. Fibre art seemed to be very free form to me, allowing me to be

a lot more creative in my designs. I soon found that I could take pictures of terrain, flowers or people and create a work from the feelings the photographs emitted to me. Being a minimalist at heart, whatever I had photographed I would abstract out until it felt right to my artistic eye and inner self.’ Describing her style as contemporary with ‘a bit of surrealism’, Bonnie has also drawn influence from pop art. ‘I have enjoyed the work of Andy Warhol for a long time, just the fact that he did it his way resonates with me,’ she says. ‘I really like how Andy took the

simple things in life and made them important; in my work you definitely see that trait.’www.thefestivalofquilts.co.uk.
 www.bonniejofiberarts.com

Bonnie’s full 14-piece ‘Swimming Upstream’ installation will be on display at the Festival of Quilts later this year, and she will also be debuting the second edition of her book, Swimming Upstream: A Memoir. 
For more of the article contact me and I will gladly email you a copy.  Hope to see you at The Festival of Quilts!