Collection: Margaret Blank

At first it was grief therapy – an escape from the challenges of my husband’s illness, which took his life in 2006. Now textile art has become my greatest joy. I love the look and feel of layers, rough-edged applique, free-form machine quilting and/or hand-stitching. More recently, I’ve begun to work with mono-printing, water colour, fabric paint and dilute acrylics on canvas, combined with quilting and/or needle-felting, bringing new textures to the way I interpret the world around me in textiles – inspired by my rural Alberta hamlet, the rolling prairie and the wide Alberta sky.

I’ve been an Artist Member of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) since 2008, and earned my City & Guilds of London Level 2 Certificate in Creative Techniques: Quilting in 2012. I’ve been fortunate to be included in the Annual Encore! Lacombe Art Show & Sale for the past several years, and in the Camrose Art Walk in 2018 and 2019.

In October 2016 my installation – Mark on the Body: Honouring Those Who Live with Type 1 Diabetes – was exhibited in the upper gallery at the Lacombe Memorial Centre. In the winter of 2018-2019, my friend and SAQA colleague, Mary Wilton of Camrose, and I, were thrilled to exhibit our collaboration, Shamrock & Thistle: Textile Art Inspired by Ireland and Scotland in the lower gallery near Anna Maria’s Café.

My work is in private collections in B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, and has been featured at galleries in Sylvan Lake and Fort McMurray. Currently my work is on view and for purchase at Gracie D’s Antiques, Collectibles and Gifts in Mirror, and at Alix Public Library. I have one piece touring internationally with the SAQA global exhibit Season After Season. Entitled “Incarnation to Resurrection”, it is one of nine pieces from that exhibit featured in the August/September 2019 issue of Quilting Arts magazine.

Look for my work as Featured Artist at the Encore! Lacombe Art Show and Sale in the spring of 2022, and as one of the twelve artists selected from Across Canada to participate in Art in the Park, Glacier National Park, Revelstoke, B.C. in the summer of 2022.