At last Saturday’s SAQA Parlor meeting, Linda Strowbridge did a great job talking about different
methods of conducting critiques of art quilts. As promised, she has provided us with some
resources for anyone who would like to read a little more on the topic.
We discussed a common, art school approach to conducting
critiques. Known by the acronym DAIJ, the critique involves four steps:
Description, Analysis, Interpretation and Judgement.
You can learn more about how to conduct at DAIJ critique in Lyric
Kinard’s book, “Art + Quilt: Design Principles and Creativity Exercises.” She
devotes an entire chapter to “The Art of Evaluation and Critique,” offering
lots of questions to ask at each stage of the critique and guidance on how to
tailor the critique to art quilts.
For a little more information on DAIJ critiques, check out this
quick slideshow or this blog post entitled, “How to critique
artwork like a pro.”
Of course, there are assorted other ways to critique an art
quilt.
Kit Vincent outlines a critique method used by many quilt groups
in this article on the SAQA website.
The SAQA website contains several other interesting resources
about critique. They include a “Self
Assessment Sheet” by Christine Zoller and an “Artwork
Critique Form.”
Finally, Elizabeth Barton - a quilt artist, instructor and author
in Georgia - offers her insights in a 2010 blog post entitled “On the Art of Critique.” She discusses the
challenges of getting quilt artists to actually engage in critique, some
practices from the design classes she teaches, and a different approach to
critiquing works in progress.
