A group of textile artist banded together during lockdown to create a new exhibit inspired by the children’s game of telephone.

You remember the game: One person says something to one person, and that person repeats the phrase to the next, repeated several times until the phrase morphed into something different by the end.

Fifteen members of Studio Art Quilt Associates Indiana chapter decided to play their own version. Over a period of five months, three groups of five artists worked together. One artist would submit a photo, which was interpreted into a quilt by another, that artist took a photo of their quilt and then sent that to another, ultimately resulting in four interpretations of the original photo. The end result is 60 quilts, inspired by 15 photographs. None of the artists were shown the original photos before, or during the process.

“The collaborative experience of a single photo evolving through four interpretations brought an awareness of how we see life from our own perspective, are inspired by others, and share our vision of the world through our own creativity. The results were surprising, sometimes quizzical, but always insightfully creative,” according to an exhibit statement provided by SAQA-IN. Each piece has includes an artists statement to explain their thought process. As part of a new initiative at ARTSWIN, artist statements and entry tags are available in both English and Spanish.

You can view the exhibit April 19-April 30. A closing reception for the show is scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday, April 30.

Studio Art Quilters Associates, Inc. (SAQA) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the art quilt. https://www.saqa.com/

See something you would like to purchase? Email Andrea Adams at [email protected] for more information.