Floral Arrangement: Creating Fused Flower Quilts
Making beautiful flowers, concentric patterns, block design, and experimenting with exotic fabrics are all included in this class. Learn Sue’s layered construction technique for cutting, assembling, and arranging flowers as she has done in her extensive Flower Series quilts. This class will give you the opportunity to use gorgeous fabrics and expansive color—plus, the construction method can be applied to other designs. Create a study quilt (about 16”x16”), then move on to a larger, more involved art quilt with surprising complexity and power. (Those who are taking this class a second time can expand on these concepts.)
While pursuing a degree in molecular biology and a master's in biomedical illustration, Sue Benner created her vision of the microscopic universe in painted and quilted textile constructions. Her early work propelled her to become a studio artist in 1980, working primarily in the medium that later became known as the Art Quilt.
An innovator in her field, Benner creates complex dyed and painted textiles combined with recycled fabrics to form collaged fields of pattern, color, and beauty. Her work is shown world-wide in galleries, US embassies and museums including the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, National Quilt Museum, Neville Public Museum and the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art.
Her quilts have been juried into Quilt National eight times, recently winning the Most Innovative Use of the Medium award. She served as a juror in 2009.
A respected educator, she lectures and teaches workshops nationally and internationally in the areas of surface design, textile collage, fused quilt construction and artistic inspiration. She is well known for her communications skills and her ability to bring her knowledge of design and technique to the classroom experience.
Living in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, J. Craig Jett, Benner works in her studio custom-built in the backyard of their family home. They have two grown sons, Kellan and Calder Jett, who were the muses for many of her early series.
Although she has lived in Texas for over 40 years, part of her heart resides still in her home state of Wisconsin.
Statement
My love affair with fabric began with my first memories of the clothes my mother, Joanne Hagene Benner, made me. Uncannily, I can recall the exact hue, fiber content and weave. In the ensuing years, my mother taught me to sew, carefully and creatively.
My father, Milt Benner, always had a pencil in his hand or behind his ear, drawing on napkins in restaurants and painting on the weekends. I now recognize how creativity was imbedded in everything he did. I have kept my maiden name in his artistic honor and memory.
While in college and immersed in the subjects of calculus, organic chemistry and cellular biology, I was continually drawn to the visual. I saw pattern everywhere: math problems danced in a dimensional space, organic molecules were drawn in structural diagrams, and biological cells stacked themselves in lovely arrays. When forced to satisfy a few humanities credits, I took an art history course that changed the direction of my life dramatically. Surface design, drawing, painting and more art classes followed.
My education in molecular biology and biomedical illustration still figures in my work with a deep sense of structure and organizing principles. "Form follows function," and the resulting form is usually beautiful in its solution.
My experiments continue in my studio. I revel in the simple act of placing one fabric next to another. It’s a good way to begin, and the work continues.
Price is per person. Double Occupancy. You each have your own bed and your own closet for personal items And your own bathrobe. You share an en-suite bathroom
We assign all students to rooms based on giving everyone a great space. All double occupancy rooms are in the main property
This fee DOES NOT INCLUDE State of Ct Room Occupancy/Sales Tax of 11%.
Here is the breakdown:
Single Room Retreat Fee $1950
Accommodation/Sales Tax 11% $215 This tax will be added onto your final payment invoice
TOTAL Retreat Fee $2165
If you want to save $100 by prepaying in full at time of registration please add code "save100" in the discount window at checkout.
A room all to myself but with a shared bathroom and at The Cardinal House, an 1800's historic Victorian adjacent to The Connecticut River Valley Inn
This fee DOES NOT INCLUDE State of Ct Room Occupancy/Sales Tax of 11%.
Here is the breakdown:
Single Room Retreat Fee $2295
Accommodation/Sales Tax 11% $253 This tax will be added onto your final payment invoice
TOTAL Retreat Fee with tax $2548
If you want to save $100 by prepaying in full at time of registration please add code "save100" in the discount window at checkout.
A room all to myself with my own private en-suite bathroom and balcony
This fee DOES NOT INCLUDE State of Ct Room Occupancy/Sales Tax of 11%.
Here is the breakdown:
Single Room Retreat Fee $2650
Accommodation/Sales Tax 11% $292 This tax will be added onto your final payment invoice
TOTAL Retreat Fee $2942
If you want to save $100 by prepaying in full at time of registration please add code "save100" in the discount window at checkout.
For participants who don't need overnight lodging. Price is per person and includes lunch only. Doesn't include 24/7 after hours studio use after end of workshop.
This fee DOES NOT INCLUDE State of Ct Room Occupancy/Sales Tax of 6.45%.
Here is the breakdown:
Single Room Retreat Fee $975
Accommodation/Sales Tax 6.45 $63 This tax will be added onto your final payment invoice
TOTAL Retreat Fee $1038
There are no prepay discounts for the Day Student rate
Do you have a loved one who you want to join you but WILL NOT be taking any classes? Use this add-on. This fee includes everything that the full rate includes EXCEPT for the classroom time.
This fee DOES NOT INCLUDE State of Ct Room Occupancy/Sales Tax of 11%.
Here is the breakdown:
Extra Guest $1200
Accommodation/Sales Tax 11% $132 This tax will be added onto your final payment invoice
TOTAL Retreat Fee $1332
There are no pre-pay discounts for this choice
5pm Welcome Reception - meet your fellow students reception with appetizers and refreshments.
Room check ins begin at 3pm