Welcome to Greta Hildebrand’s Fine Art Studio. 

May 2025 and Spring is well on its way. Life is divided between Ridgeway close to the shores of Lake Erie and Jordan where I find myself once a week at the Jordan Art Gallery. Both areas continue to present creative inspiration: shore-lines, nature parks and trails; and the rich escarpment features with its farmlands and natural forests. A very recent trip back to New Zealand and the country of my youth where my family lives, has inspired a new series of work – see my blog spot as it progresses.

Most of what I create now focuses on the needle felted medium which continues to grow as it incorporates handspun yarns and reused panels of fabric art quilts. A common thread between my fabric and fibre work is the stitching through layers that adds security (fibres cannot pull out of their support, along with texture and dimension.

I had my first exhibition in Ridgeway at Lakeside Books and Art in December of 2022, again in August of 2023 and am planning another exhibit in August of this year, 2025. All inspired by subject matter of the local area. The example below is of Point Abino from Bay Beach and is mounted on beach boards retrieved from the Lake Erie shores. This work has found its new owner in Stratford.

Almost 5 years in as a partner with the Jordan Art Gallery I am finding that customers have grown to appreciate my work and have the confidence to consider it a valuable acquisition. My subject matter from the escarpment, farmlands, and Lake Ontario including the ever popular Toronto skyline offers a variety of impressions from Niagara.  The Gallery is open 7 days – 10 am to 5 pm from May 24 to December 31 with reduced winter hours.

Below are some of my major works which have sold through the Gallery. Each is a feature wall-sized fibre quilt which are now in Toronto, Algonquin Park and Niagara.

Back from its Canadian tour is my 60 x 45 inch needle felted quilt, Corona Premonition, which has been added to a privately owned, life-time art collection in Niagara. My work in Connecting our Natural Worlds has been sold to a private collector in Texas. Colour with a U exhibition has also concluded – quilt now sold to a Toronto collector. Images of these quilts are below.

New work which I began in early January, has now found a home at a private cottage in Algonquin Park. The owners of Into the Field found the subject of thistles and other native plants leading into a farm field reminiscent of their backyard. See blog spot for information.

Here are previous details for the travelling exhibit works.

https://www.cityofwoodstock.ca/en/live-and-play/wag-past-exhibitions.aspx

Two years ago I completed and and entered my largest needle felted quilt to date into the Grand National “Crossroads” exhibition.  Corona Premonition, March 13, 2020 was accepted and has begun its 18-month tour across Canada starting in New Brunswick. I am featured here www.unb.ca/cel/enrichment/art-centre/index.html  in a presentation about my work. For the tour schedule see www.grandnationalfibreartexhibition.com Check my blog for details on its inception and process to completion.

This work, now renamed Toronto Skyline from Seventeenth Street, Jordan, is presently hanging at the Jordan Art Gallery.

I was a proud member of the international Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) when this work was created. Worldwide, there are over 3,500 members; Canada has an extremely strong presence with the first international conference just held March 19 – 21, 2020, in “virtual reality.”  In conjunction, an all-Canadian exhibition of 44 art quilts was curated from 175 submissions nationwide. Divided into 2 components:  Colour with a U and Colour with a U Too have now completed their first showing at Homer Watson House and Gallery in Kitchener and RiverBrink Art Museum in Queenston, Niagara on the Lake.  The exhibitions will travel across Canada over the next 3 years. See here for my presentation on the process.

Colour with a U now concluded

Until Sept 7, 2020: Homer Watson House & Gallery, Kitchener, ON 

April 6 – June12, 2021: The Muse, Lake of the Woods Museum, Kenora, ON 

June 28 – October 2, 2021: Museum of Industry, Stellarton, NS

November 25, 2021 – January 9, 2022: Buhler Gallery, Winnipeg, MB

January 29 – April 10, 2022: Orillia Museum of Art and History, Orillia, ON

April 30 – July 2, 2022: Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Almonte, ON

July 15 – September 2, 2022: St. John Arts Center, Saint John, NB

April 1 – June 3, 2023: Campbell House Museum, Toronto, ON in conjunction with the international SAQA conference planned for May, 2023

My work below, “We the People of Staghorn and Peegee” was featured in this exhibition. The work has been sold to a private collector in Toronto.

Colour with a U Too:

Until September 5, 2020: RiverBrink Art Museum, Queenston, Niagara on the Lake, ON 

September 18, 2020 – October 31, 2020: Signal Hill Arts Centre, Weyburn, SK 

November 17, 2020 – February 14, 2021: J. Franklin Wright Gallery, Port Hawkesbury, NS

March 2, 2021 – April 10, 2021: Agnes Jamieson Gallery, Minden ON

October 7, 2022 – November 10, 2022: Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s, NL

Niagara alone has over 20 members in SAQA who, under normal circumstances, meet bimonthly to share ideas and learn new skills. In September of 2019 we had a group exhibition at the Jordan Art Gallery titled “13 Studio Art Quilters.”  I have posted photographs  below of our opening, Sunday September 8. 

Through the SAQA juried calls for entry, my work was selected for Connecting Our Natural Worlds, an exhibition addressing environmental concerns, opened at the Sonora Desert Museum in Arizona October 5, 2019 and runs into January 2020.  I was at the opening to represent Canada.  https://photos.app.goo.gl/bW4EfjSVi1Yr3bp47  photos of the exhibition in Sonora with credit to photographer Jay Pierstorff.

Check out this video with artist interviews and close-up photography of the featured artworks  https://vimeopro.com/saqa/naturalworlds

Snapshots from my spring, summer, fall and Christmas collection at the Jordan Art Gallery.  My award winning sculpture titled Bosoleil Saracen which was featured at Threadworks in Fergus, 2016 and Fibre Content in Burlington, 2017.  New  works, “At the side of the road” series are being added weekly.  A fall change is coming soon!In May I exhibited in the town of Ailsa Craig in Ontario, along with Quilts of New Zealand.  My work in now in New Zealand on tour.  I also exhibited this spring at the Homer Watson House and Gallery in Kitchener, and was awarded “best in show” for my work “Fractured Earth Skies.” My Peegee Hydrangea quilt, “Clouded Heads” is on tour in Ontario with the Fibre Content exhibition. See below for all images above and for a link to the tour schedule.

Above are images of recently shown works.  “Kahika, Steps to the Underworld” has just arrived in New Zealand where it will travel over the next year.  We visited  Cape Reinga on our trip to New Zealand in 2017 where the photo that inspired this quilt was taken.  The work represents a special place where my husband Peter and I returned on many occasions.  It is a spiritual place for the indigenous Maori where the spirits of the deceased are believed to return to Hawaiki, land of their ancestors. This is a mixed media quilt.

“Fractured Earth Skies” recently showed at Homer Watson and is a needle felted work representing the fragile state of our earth beneath its protective cloud cover – also in turmoil. The exhibition of miniature quilts was titled Future Endeavours and in this respect represents a future project to capture the earth’s skies each day for 365 days (one year) from one designated point.

“Turbulence:  White Wood Aster” (Eurybia divaricate) was created for SAQA’s Connecting our Natural Worlds Global call for entry.  It was one of two Canadian quilts chosen for the exhibition that opens at the Sonora Desert Museum in Arizona, October 5, 2019.  See my blog for details on the creative process.

Clouded Head quilt now on tour following Fibre Content, 2018.  

My work was selected to be included in the exhibition comprising 90 quilts from across Ontario. The Art Gallery of Burlington hosted this show of creative work between September 6 and 16.  The piece was included in the travelling exhibition that will visit 7 galleries over the next 2 years – currently it is finishing its show in Thunder Bay and will then travel on to Timmins, Simcoe then Orillia until the end of 2020.

Visit http://fibrations.org/index.php for images of the 40 quilts and their destinations.

A little about the quilt: I completed last fall’s photographic work depicting Pee Gee hydrangeas.  This image was part of my test series, some of which were rather dark.  I decided to cut and rearrange the photograph and applique to a white background – originally the idea was to use that as a backing which would be cut around the flower heads.  I preferred it with the white and decided to emulate the flower formations with lines, then stitched words which comprise research into the various species of hydrangeas.  They disclose not only the origin of the various species, but their botanical information and medicinal properties.  I intend to work further into a series of hydrangea quilts – the second of which has been printed and ready to start working on.

2019 update

My Spring and summer Niagara silk fibre works were inspired by changes in the rural landscape.  Here are a handful of my favourites.  I have in 2019 worked up a selection as “minis.”  Those that are still available are featured at the Jordan Art Gallery. They are all surface mounted on stretched canvas and can be removed to be professionally framed.  The surface of all my textile and fibre works is treated lightly with Scotchguard to protect from soiling.

Five quilts have now been completed for the 20-quilt project mentioned below.  I am planning a portrait workshop at RiverBrink Art Museum for July 7.  See details on the education link or go directly to www.riverbrinkartmuseum.org where registrations have begun.

20-quilt project explained:  In the Fall of 2016 I ventured out to capture some views of the Niagara Peninsula.  As with most process oriented work, the exciting part is not knowing what will develop.  I am using a printing company who can transfer my photographs onto cloth of an almost unlimited size.  I challenge the notion that Canada is “winter” and even that part has its richness.  I walk now with my camera and look for the unexpected!  I invite you to open my blog and take a peek.  Keep scrolling back to see documentation of my previous projects.

Archived from 2018 and before:

Winter Gymnasium #2 gained an Honourable Mention at the Miniature Quilt exhibition, Homer Watson House and Gallery, spring 2018.  This is an annual event. SOLD

Mewinzha (a long time ago):  Winds of Change has now been dismantled from the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre.

The exhibition titled As the Crow Flies commemorated Canada’s 150th anniversary.  My blog postings unravel the process behind this work.

This 12 x 12 inch quilt donated to the annual SAQA fundraising campaign, denotes the start of a new series of large works. This sculpted piece is derived from a series of photographs taken at nearby Decew Falls last fall.  See oaks above.

SOLD

Late last year I submitted a small (7″ x 10″) quilted work to the international SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Association).  It began its public début on April 17, 2017 in Lincoln, Nebraska.  The work was born of a sampler which was created to explore the subject and technique for the Mewinzha piece above.  Titled Heart of Niagara, Ontario, it depicts random stones from the historic section of the Fonthill Cemetery in my hometown of Pelham.

Here is a link to that event https://www.saqa.com/memberArt.php?                                                                             cat=8&ec=3&ex=80 and below information from the                                                       website:

Other paintings displayed in my portfolio are available. My prices are reasonable:  larger canvases, 30″x 30″, sell for $350, rectangular pieces are $250 ($450 for a pair) and the smaller 20″x 20″, usually sold as a series, are $500 for a grouping of 3 which can be hung horizontally or vertically to suit your space or vision.

Watercolours from the Historic Barns and Homes of Fenwick series that were not sold during my exhibition of 2015, are available at 20% off the original price of $150.  See my Exhibitions for images.