Effie Galletly Effie Galletly grew up in the west of Scotland and was raised in a home where art, music and sewing were greatly encouraged. After leaving school she travelled widely as a singer songwriter followed by a period working as a music journalist, and later running her own solo music publishing company while bringing up two daughters with husband Michael Dickson, a consulting structural engineer, in Somerset, England. Work on image making started seriously for Effie while studying music as a mature student. Focusing on composing music to image, her first wall hangings were made to show with a wind quartet she wrote as part of her studies. There have been four main influences in Effie's artistic development: her mother, Isabel, who set her challenging standards in her dressmaking and tailoring from early on; her school Art teacher, Mr Wilkie, whose lessons in drawing, structure and colour she has never forgotten; more recently Jan Hassard, who introduced her to the world of traditional quilt making in her beginners' class; and Susan Denton whose inspiring workshops set her on her own path of discovery. In the last few years her work has been viewed more widely. Her quilt Duck Weed at Lake Simcoe was part of the Transforming Traditions exhibition of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles, at Dean Clough, Halifax in 2002. Her tryptich Woodland Jewel, inspired by the new gridshell building at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in Sussex, was on display inside the new building in 2002. Her pieces Tepee and A Mouse's Eye View of the Quantock Hills, Somerset have been part of the World Quilt Competition tour in the USA in summer 2003. In 2004 Effie had work on show at Morven Gallery on the Isle of Lewis. She is one of a group of international quilt makers invited to create a work for the New International Quilts 2004 exhibition at Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead. Her work, Crannog, was featured as part of the 2004 season at the Scottish Crannog Centre in Kenmore, Perthshire. From 2002 – 2004 Effie helped set up and co-ordinated Contemporary Quilt, a specialist group of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles. Effie's project for 04/05 was to complete a series of Scottish landscapes titled Catching the Light. This was the body of her first solo show at the Loch Lomond Quilt Show in May 2005. Catching the Light was also the focus for her show in the Public Library, Bath, Somerset in June 2006. This exhibition included working drawings, illustrations of techniques used and work in progress. Several Catching the Light pieces were acquired for private collections. Since the summer show Effie has produced new work related to the Catching the Light series. The beginning of this continuing work, Looking, with a similar focus on landscape shape and form, colour and light, can be found in the Looking gallery. In July 2007 there was a small exhibition of Effie's work as part of the Harris Arts Festival on the Isle of Harris. This took place at the Seallam! Visitor Centre, Northton, Leverburgh. Later in the year in October, Effie was invited to exhibit her collection of Scottish work in Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design, Sydney, Nova Scotia. This was for the whole month of October and overlapped with the Celtic Colour International Festival in Cape Breton. In 2009, Effie has had a comprehensive exhibition of her landscapes, titled A Sense of Place, at Morven Gallery for the month of June. Workshops ran concurrently and were attended by students from all over Scotland and the north of England as well as by one adventurous American who happened to be on holiday in Scotland at the time. Effie also participated for the first time in the Kirkcudbright Art and Crafts Trail in Dumfries and Galloway, an Open Studio event at the end of July. In 2010 Effie was invited to be the featured artist at Quiltfest, held annually in Llangollen, Wales, for the month of February. In the summer she exhibited a small show of work in the Seallam! Visitor Centre on the Isle of Harris again, from 7th - 12th June. She will also have a gallery at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham between 19th and 22nd August. And to round off the year Effie will be exhibiting her work at the Harbour Cottage Gallery in Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland from 25th October - 6th November.
A number of the works in the galleries are already in private collections. For those which have not already been purchased, there is a price list available. Please click on Contact to request further details. |