When I asked Ursula Adler, a quilter living in
Vienna, to e-mail me a little information about Austria, she
replied, appropriately: "This is coming right from the
Internet, I hope you can use some of it:"Austria is a federal state with a total area of 32,367 sq. miles (83,855 sq. km) and consists of nine provinces - Burgenland, Carinthia, Lower Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, Upper Austria, Vienna and Vorarlberg. Austria's border has an overall length of 1,682 miles. Austria has common borders with no fewer than eight other countries.
"According to latest figures (1994) Austria has a population of about 8,000,000. This represented an increase of some 435,000 since 1981. In 1991 3.75 million (48.2%) of the population were male, 4.04 million (51.8%) female. For those born in 1992 average life expectancy for men was 72.8, for women 79.3. Austria's population is 98% German-speaking."
Although it has a rich and ancient cultural tradition in music and other arts, Austria's quilting history is much more contemporary. "The quilting history in Austria is next to none," Ursula says. "It all started in the late '70s, early '80s, and I think until the middle '80s every quilter in this country thought she was the only one. Also, in Austria quilting is referred to as 'Patchwork,' and that's what I thought of when I first heard about quilts. You know, the rather ugly '70s 'hippie patchwork.'"
Lilo Wesely, also a Vienna quilter, places the beginning of quilting in Austria more precisely, and even more recently: "Until nine years ago, there were only a few quilters scattered around the country, not knowing each other. The history of quilting in Austria began in May 1988 when the first Quilt Expo Europe - organized by the then called 'American International Quilt Association,' now called 'International Quilt Association' - took place in Salzburg, the capital of one of Austria's federal provinces. There about a dozen Austrian quilters met. From then on these quilters kept contact with each other and the Patchwork Group Vienna was founded in June 1988. I was a co-founder of this group and it was the first active patchwork group in Austria. Since then, the group organized at least one big exhibition per year to promote patchwork and quilting. This proved to be very successful; further groups were founded and now there is a very vivid patchwork and quilting scene in Austria."
The first national quilting organization in Austria was formed just a couple of years ago. The "Patchwork Gilde Austria," founded in January 1996, now has about 200 members, and organized the first national exhibition in November of that year.
"There is also an informal association representing all European national guilds," Lilo says. "the 'European Quilt Association' (EQA). The international representatives of each national guild meet once a year to coordinate activities, exchange experiences and organize a symposium with workshops and exhibitions. The first one was held in 1996 in Wales, the next one will take place in Belgium in spring 1999."
Both Ursula and Lilo say that Austria's quilting tradition is still too young to have developed any characteristic style, but certain trends are emerging. "There is a tendency to use Austrian style fabrics," Lilo says. "Traditional American blocks are very popular but there is also a strong trend to contemporary quilting." As for technique, Ursula says "Many quilters I know quilt by hand, very few by machine."
As quilting has grown in Austria, some quilt stores have sprung up to supply their needs. "We have very, very few quilt stores here," Ursula says, "and since the shop owners have to import almost everything from the USA, supplies are terribly expensive. That's why I'm so proud of the Austrian quilters, it shows that they're really devoted to their art. We also have regular fabric shops, but since almost all cottons Austria produces are 'Dirndl' (Austria's traditional or folklore costumes) fabrics, everything looks a bit old-fashioned and outdated. Now if that's the look you want, you can make quilts for less money. Personally I'm too much a woman of the 20th century <g>; you'll never see one of those fabrics in my quilts (though I did use them as a beginning quilter)."
When asked about computer use among Austrians, and particularly among quilters, Ursula and Lilo agree that "computer quilting" is still in its infancy. "I don't think there's any difference in regular computer use between Austria and the USA," Ursula says, "[but] the Internet is a different story. In Europe it really is expensive, because we pay even for local calls. So the clock is always ticking in the back of your head. There are few people (like me <g>) who don't care about it, and just use it.(Let me put it this way, when my husband lost his job a year ago [luckily he found one again], my first thought was that I don't want to give up the Net. <g> I met some of my best friends on Compuserve and the Internet, and I know I would go crazy without them.)"
Ursula and Lilo maintain probably the only two quilting web pages which originate in Austria, and they both represent the small contingent of Austria quilters well. You can find Ursula's at
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/2262/index.html
and Lilo's at
http://members.magnet.at/patchfan/
Ursula and Lilo are at different ends of the spectrum as participants in organized quilting in Austria. Lilo as a founding member of Patchwork Group Vienna has been active in the quilting scene. Ursula on the other hand finds that she prefers not to affiliate too closely with a group. The warmth and mutual support of quilters in Austria, as elsewhere in the world, comes out, however, in a wonderful story Ursula tells about her affiliation with a group in Vienna:
"In the summer of 1991 I finally tracked down a quilting group in Vienna, and I was extremely excited about it. I loved all the people there, everyone was so nice to me, and they welcomed me with open arms. After going to the meetings for a while, I found out that it just isn't for me, but it was hard for me to find reasons to stay home. I think I'll have to explain this a little. The quilting groups in Austria are really small (I think the one I belonged to has currently about 25 members), so if you don't come to a few meetings, people will call you and ask what's up, and why didn't you come, and I hope you'll come to the next, etc.
"Now my finding out that I'm not a 'group animal' has absolutely nothing to do with the other members; they all treated me very lovingly, and with much care. It's just that I like to do 'my own thing,' at the time I'm ready to do it, and when I want to do it. There was way too much pressure for me (my own pressure, not pressure from other people!!) to get the block for a birthday done, or for one of the other group projects. I never found a way to express my feelings about it to my fellow group members. I was so afraid I wouldn't find the right words, and hurt someone's feelings.
"Then something extremely shocking happened. Our group president Hanna Afritsch died in January 1997, and that 'threw me out of it' completely. Hanna was the last 'thread' that connected me to the group; I would visit her at home (she lived practically around the corner), she would tell me the latest news, projects, tell me about her plans, show me the things the group learned in their monthly workshops, etc. Since her death I have often planned to visit the group, but whenever I get ready to go, I just can't, I know I would be in tears as soon as I entered the room - and Hanna isn't there.
"This is to you Hanna: I miss you terribly, and I wish you could have stayed with us much longer. I feel so lonely without you, but have to try and live without your friendship every day. I hope they're right, and we will meet again one day. With all my love, Ursula"
TVQ * Planet Patchwork