Jan 12 – Joy Swift

Joy started working in fiber by growing up in a cotton growing family, where she learned to card and seed the cotton, then use it for quilting. In 1963, while pregnant with her second child, she took a class from Jean Ray Laury. Jean, a student of Stanford University’s Matt Kaun, was doing banners, quilts, and writing books about what you could do with fabric. Joy’s interest in stitchery grew and she started the San Francisco Peninsula Stitchery Guild with a group of artist friends. At that time, she says, no one wanted fiber work entered in art shows. She started calling her work ‘paintings in thread’ and got them shown. The stitchery guild started doing shows themselves and that inspired her to keep going.

Joy will share some of her work and describe in detail how one of her pieces, now hanging here in Austin, was made and shown: it was entered in an exhibition and rejected by Matt Kaun, entered in a county fair and accepted by Matt Kaun’s wife, where it went on to be awarded 2nd place in the art category, where it was showing beside paintings. (It’s a spectacular piece and deserves great honors!)

Joy is also a story teller. Time permitting, she will tell us a story about a quilter- a nice activity for a cool winter evening. Grab your favorite quilt to bundle up in and prepare to be entertained!