Critique Resources

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.