Rosalie Dace

Are we There Yet?

     South African quilter Rosalie Dace is a studio artist who has been working in the fibre art, quilt and embroidery world since the '70's. With a background in art and education, she finds exhibiting, teaching, and judging combine her interests admirably. Her work, which reflects her passion for colour, design and texture, is characterized by its wild mix of fabrics. She has had a lifelong interest in textiles and embroidery and has a degree in Art and English. While she values the traditions from which quilt making has come, she believes that a quilt should say something about its time and place in history. This and her awareness of being a South African artist give her work its particular character.

Almost Forgotten, Never Told                        Baghdad

     Rosalie has been described as a cultural anthropologist whose work defines the collective human experience. Her work is emotional and highly subjective, reflecting feelings of place and referring to memories and personal experiences, telling stories with which we can all identify.  One quilt, a homage to her deceased father, a gardener, evokes the colours and shapes of his favourite environment, another of a local market. Another yet, recalling her excitement in returning home to South Africa, depicts an aerial view of the ocean over which she flew. She uses a variety of fabrics upon which to work, such as silk, African cloth and burlap. At times she decorates her quilts with beads, buttons, string, safety pins and other embellishments traditional to South African clothing and textiles.

Night Flight

     Her work has been widely exhibited, and she has won several awards including Best of Show at the South African National Quilt Festival in 1988 and 1998, her quilts are to be found in private collections and in the Durban Art Gallery, and has appeared in national and international publications.

Phoenix                               

                                            

  Apart from her native South Africa, she has taught and exhibited internationally in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Canada and the US, and was nominated for the Professional Quilter magazine’s “Teacher of the Year” Award in 2007. Apart from her normal art and teaching commitments she has been involved in programs aimed at training Zulu women embroidery skills for the Durban Manufacturing Advisory Centre and for a trust operating in rural KwaZulu-Natal.  She is also involved in teaching patchwork and quilting to a group at an old age home in Durban.        

  

Word for Word

 

     Dace lives in Durban, South Africa but she also spends time each year working in the United States and is a much sought after teacher and speaker. She has been included in exhibitions in the US, Europe, New Zealand and Africa including the Houston International Quilt Festival; the Fresno Art Museum in Fresno, California; Galerie im Stadhaus in Bad Homburg, Germany; Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead, United Kingdom; and the Jabulisa Exhibition, which toured South Africa from 2001 to 2003. She also co-developed the South African Quilters' Guild training program for judges and has judged art quilts all over the world.          

Durban Dreams                               Gypsy Summer







 

Awake my Soul







 

Spice Route






 

Finding the Way






 

Watching and Waiting