Lectures
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Having a quilt guild meeting and need a speaker?
Holding a business event and want someone to talk about making art? Planning a retreat and seeking an unusual topic to entertain the attendees? Lectures listed below are available to patchwork quilt guilds and other organizations and groups interested or involved in patchwork quilts as art, craft, or hobby. Dena's portfolio talk is suitable for non-quilters as well. All talks can be tailored to the timing requirements of your group, leaving plenty of time for questions and answers. All lectures can be provided as scheduled digital or live presentations with slideshows. Click HERE for information about pricing. Contact Dena for more details, as well as her best recommendations for your group. |
Portfolio: Dena Dale Crain
Art Quilter Out of Africa
Dena's talk presents an overview of more than 25 years as an art quilter, teacher, author, judge, and speaker, working in and from her home in upcountry Kenya. in this presentation of her portfolio, Dena describes the thought processes behind her unusual work. Life experiences, lessons learned from other teachers, and her own background in design led Dena down a specific path and into her career as a quilter and teacher of. note. Shared images of her adopted country and lifestyle give her audience deeper insight into the limitations faced by Dena and other quilters in Africa--matters of wildlife, tropical flowers as inspiration, shortages of fabrics, tools, and materials, not to mention good quality instruction: all these factors went into making Dena the art quilter she is today.
World of Color
World of Color is a lecture that provides a quick and accessible guide to the vast world of color for artists. In the field of color physics, there are two main perspectives. One is rooted in the practical use of pigments, while the digital era influences the other and focuses on pure light and its absence to understand and control color.
During her lecture, Dena introduces a useful concept, likening color theory to a globe, based on the artists' pigment theory, because artists primarily work with pigments in their chosen media. Dena guides the audience to rely on this globe-like visualization whenever they face challenges in managing color.
Of course, the topic is a bit more intricate than this brief description, but the main takeaway from the lecture is a valuable tool that artists can depend on to navigate their way through the complexities of color.
During her lecture, Dena introduces a useful concept, likening color theory to a globe, based on the artists' pigment theory, because artists primarily work with pigments in their chosen media. Dena guides the audience to rely on this globe-like visualization whenever they face challenges in managing color.
Of course, the topic is a bit more intricate than this brief description, but the main takeaway from the lecture is a valuable tool that artists can depend on to navigate their way through the complexities of color.
30 Cool Things to Learn from Making a Darned Quilt
Dena's most popular design-it-yourself patchwork quilt class has been "Darned Quilts." First offered as an online class on Quilt University, then later on Academy of Quilting, in addition to being taught many times in live classrooms all over the world, Darned Quilts is Den's brain-child. Used to develop imagery in ways that could hardly be conceived without the conscious design of their makers, Darned Quilts nevertheless offer at least 30 cool things you, too, can learn from making one.
In this lecture, Dena describes the concepts behind these remarkable works of art and talks at greater length about all of the amazing and fun things you can learn while making a Darned Quilt under her careful tutelage. A fun lecture about the learning process as well as the satisfaction of doing the work, 30 Cool Things is appropriate for most patchwork quilters.
In this lecture, Dena describes the concepts behind these remarkable works of art and talks at greater length about all of the amazing and fun things you can learn while making a Darned Quilt under her careful tutelage. A fun lecture about the learning process as well as the satisfaction of doing the work, 30 Cool Things is appropriate for most patchwork quilters.
Think Like a Designer
Learn some of the secrets behind Dena's art quilts and how they were designed, This exploration into basic design fundamentals shows how anyone, even you!, can become a designer by mastering the tools all designers share in common. Having the right mindset, continually asking the question, "What if . . . ?," and having the courage to push ideas forward to their logical conclusion are the character attributes of any successful designer. Dena will lead you down a few of the paths she has followed over the years to develop a portfolio of signature works of art.