The living arts The little old lady who never was

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 21

The living arts

The little old lady who never was

By CATHERINE HARRIS When Katie Pasquini steps off the plane, she is always amazed by the number of people who expect her to be a little old lady in patchwork clothes. Instead she is a 32-year-old bubbly Californian with a penchant for quilting.

Her quilts also break tradition, with their futuristic three-dimensional images. In Christchurch to teach at the recent national quilting symposium, Katie says she started out by signing up nine’ years ago for what she thought was an embroiderey class. ‘‘For several years I did

traditional quilting and then I took a workshop with Michael James and what he did for me was show me I could put myself into my work ... that fibre could become a medium rather than a tradition.”

This insight revolutionised her direction and gradually her computer graphic-inspired works gained national and international attention in the quilting world.

Now she is in international demand as a tutor, travelling to Japan, Britain, Belgium and other European countries every year. And she loves it.

A former painter, Katie has been asked if her designs would be better accepted on canvas but she believes they would be “ordinary,” without the extra lustre that quilting gives. "The texture and colour hat fabric is, and just the manipulation of fabric, tne of design and draff Ing, the sewing ... every little part of the process is enjoyable.” Each piece takes her about two months to create if she “works at it like a job” and has no teaching commitments. During six years she has built up 30 original designs, one of which hung in the symposium’s exhibition at the C.S.A. Gallery.

Katie says she chooses bold, bright colours to give warmth and depth, often producing a series of works. She believes in letting the design change with the flow of ideas, which is leading her into more abstract patterns with an emphasis on the

placing of colours and textures.

While not saying how much a Katie Pasquini original costs (it’s in the thousands), she does not take contract work, preferring to follow her own ideas. After all, she says, “I don’t make them to sell. I make them for myself, secondly to use them in workshops and then if they sell, that’s sort of a bonus.”

Quilting has a strong Kiwi following, with more than 350 people attending the symposium from throughout New Zealand and overseas. Katie took classes in colour theory and design, encouraging quilters to “see what feels good rather than go by the rule book. “People tend to worry too much about what the finished product will look like.” She was pleasantly surprised by the calibre of New Zealand work, particularly as quilting has only been established here for about 10 years. “I didn’t expect to see much original work but there’s a lot of new innovative design. There was a lot of real traditional work but they were real nice — they look a little different.” Now the symposium is over, Katie hopes to get a little tramping done with her musician boyfriend, Jay Wood, who will spend about a month touring New Zealand before joining her in Australia. Fdr New Zealand quilters, it is a fond farewell until the 1989 national symposium in Napier.