Golden Quilter Awards and Memories of Survival

Have you noticed the new button on the right sidebar?  SewCalGal is hosting her 4th annual Golden Quilter Awards competition with nominations for a wide variety of quilting categories beginning today.  You can participate by nominating your favorites for each of the categories and later voting for your very favorites among all the nominees to choose the best-of-the-best for this year's awards.  For more information, go to SewCalGal's initial press release here, and the nomination process post with nomination linkies for all 12 categories can be found here.  It's easy, it's fun, and you could even win a prize from one of SewCalGal's wonderful sponsors just for honoring one of quilting's finest by your nomination and vote!

A few weeks back a Cheryl Lynch Quilts blog post included a story of her recent trip to Baltimore and The American Visionary Arts Museum to view an exhibit of the fabric art of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz entitled "Through the Eye of the Needle."  This body of 36 fiber art pieces was created by Esther in her later years, to tell her children the story of her childhood and survival of the Holocaust in Poland.   A link to a video interview with Esther is included in Cheryl Lynch's post.   Viewing the video, I was moved to learn more about Esther and her remarkable fabric art and purchased a copy of the book Memories of Survival and a video documentary Through the Eye of the Needle that tell Esther's story and provide detailed images of her fabric art which includes stunning crewel embroidery as well as hand and machine applique.  Esther in a wonderful naive folk art fashion depicts with simple beauty the countryside around her childhood home in rural Poland, contrasted with the stark reality of the time, the violence and terror experienced during the two years she and her sister evaded the Gestapo.   I hope to share copies of the book and video documentary with our local school district which each year invites one or more Holocaust survivors to the middle schools to share their experience with the students.  You can see the video interview with Esther Krinitz here and I'll include a photo of the cover of the book Memories of Survival below to provide a glimpse of her extraordinary fiber art.

Additional information is also available through the non-profit educational organization established by Esther's daughters at www.artandremembrance.org.