Exhibitions in Museum De Koperen Knop, Hardinxveld-Giessendam 

Insekten Uitvergroot 

An exhibition all around insects. Insects in daily life and inspiration for art.
With 3 of my coats and a quilt.

I love how my coat was featured on the flyer.

I also taught a workshop. Fabric Collage of a fantasy butterfly.

Here are some of the results

and after finishing at home

Exhibition Quilts, Nederlands Pluimveemuseum, Barneveld, NL, 2026

The museum organised a quilt show with about 50 quilts.
They asked for quilts with Chickens, poultry and/or feathers.

    

The quilts can be seen all year long.

My coat A Pride of Peacocks was displayed there from the end of December 2025 until March 2026. 

A Pride of Peacocks

Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil, detail

Key West Vibes

Key West Vibes, detail

Nederlands Pluimveemuseum

 Highlights from 2025 part 6

In October 2025 participated in the competion Precieux of AU Fil du Tech, Amelie- les Bains-Palalda, France. We could only use shades of white, plus gold or silver.

Brumes

Brumes,detail

My work Apple Orchard was part of the exhibition Pommes in Belgium.
We had to include a Guldusi embroidery of an apple. And supply a branch for hanging the piece.

The Apple Orchard

The Apple Orchard, detail

You can see all entries on Les Mary-bobines

 Highlights from 2025 part 5

Our Art Group TalkTen came up with a new challenge: The Split Image.

TalkTen is composed of an International group of 13 female textile artists who share a passion for design, art quilts and creativity. As a group, they decide upon a design challenge and the women build art quilts as a response to the prompt.

In April 2025, an independent volunteer selected a digital photograph by California photographer Lee Decker from the Escondido Arts Partnership Photo Arts Group website (with Mr. Decker’s consent). The photograph was digitally split into two halves: six members received the left half and six the right. Each artist was asked to create an 18" x 18" textile imagining the unseen portion of their half.  This is the right half I received.

The right half of the photograph

We couldn't talk about the project to each other. I didn't have a clue what I was looking at! Neither did the others. We all had a hard time making sense of this challenge.
I decided to start with the colors and shapes in the photograph, extending the lines to the left and made a structural background. I was extremely bothered by this shape. Debated with myself to forget about it and exclude it or what?

mysterious shape

Here is my final artwork: Close Encounter

Close Encounter

After the sky split open and the spaceship vanished, a capsule remained — small, silent, and humming with questions.  

The entire project was on display at Escondido Arts Partnership, California, from October 11 to 31 2025. Here are some photos of the artwork in the gallery.

Lee Decker (left) with some of the artists.

Lee Decker's reaction after viewing the Zoom meeting of the reveal of the project :  "The fabric pieces that the artists created were quite amazing and I was impressed with their creative interpretations of the photograph. … I so enjoyed your presentation and the discussions that followed; they were endlessly fascinating. I want to thank the artists for their careful consideration of my work"

 

Escondido Arts Partnership

 Highlights from 2025 part 4

I participated in the  EQA Challenge Contrasts.

The European Quilt Association is the collaboration between 19 national European Patchwork Guilds and issues annual challenges and selected exhibitions for the members of all guilds that then travel throughout the continent.

This year the European Quilters Association (EQA) called for small size quilts with the topic Contrasts for the annual member challenge 2025. Multiple interpretations and types of contrasts appear in this exhibition: techniques, traditions, various cultural approaches, fabrics, topics, color (straight use of only black and white was not permitted)– and overall, we see that European unity prevails!

The quilts of all European Countries were shown in September at the European Patchwork Meeting in Alsace, France.

Part of the Dutch entries.

The Apple Tree

The Apple Tree, detail

Also shown at EPM was the GULDUSI collection The Afghan Amulet.
This new exhibition project also aimed to bring together Afghan and European cultures. Unlike the previous EU competition, the inspiring embroideries this time come not from Laghmani, but from Shahrak near Herat—specifically, from the Neswan Women’s Center. These women’s embroideries are crafted with great delicacy using silk thread.

Amulets are also used in Afghanistan as protective objects. There, every child wears an amulet: a Surah from the Quran is wrapped in a small piece of cloth and either pinned directly to a garment or worn on a cord around the neck, close to the body. A striking feature of Afghan amulets is their triangular shape. While not mandatory, this form is rooted in a long tradition; triangular motifs can frequently be found even on ancient artifacts.

The main requirement for participating in the "The Afghan Amulet" exhibition project is to incorporate at least one triangular embroidery piece from Shahrak into your own textile work. You are free to choose the orientation of the triangle within your piece (point facing up or down, right or left, rotated, or at an angle).

Your textile art piece based on the theme "The Afghan Amulet" should draw upon the amulet's protective function. This theme offers a vast array of possibilities. An amulet is meant to protect—whether it is the individual, the family (especially children), or men heading off to war. An amulet can offer protection against evil spirits and forces. Lands, rivers, and seas can be safeguarded by an amulet so that they continue to provide us with sustenance. And what about that small mascot dangling from a car's rearview mirror? Is that not also a contemporary amulet intended to protect us while we drive? Furthermore, why shouldn't an amulet be designed to protect our planet from adverse political and social developments or environmental catastrophes? There is no country in the world where one cannot find traditions—whether ancient or modern—surrounding the use of amulets. Let your imagination explore every possible direction.

The Precious Gift

The Precious Gift, detail

 You can see the entire collection here The Afghan Amulet 

 Highlights from 2025 part 3

My quilt  The Red Sea was selected for the exhibition Poisson d'Avril, Nantes, France,
organised by Gudusi. The work needed to include embroidered fish by Afghan Women.

"Weird, weird, fish in Afghanistan! At first glance, this idea may seem odd. This resolutely mountainous country has no sea, yet it is the combination of different ideas that lead me to propose this theme.
During archaeological excavations, small glass bottles in the shape of fish, probably for perfume, were discovered less than 20 km from Laghmani. Ancient Rome had made it that far! One of these fish is displayed at the Musée des Arts Asiatiques – Guimet in Paris. These glass fish bottles, along with many other objects (in gold), make up the treasure of Bagram, dated from the first to the second century AD. 

There are the tumultuous waters that flow down from the Panjshir Valley with the Hindu Kush in the background, not far from the Shomali plain where the embroiderers live. This mountain river doesn’t provide the fish recently offered on the capital’s stalls. Those come from two aquaculture sites to the south of Kabul. But who can afford to buy these fish? Not the embroiderers, for whom this animal remains an unaffordable exotic. Several small ponds are scattered across the villages. These water reserves bring a bit of coolness, and in their green waters swim orange fish: the only fish the embroiderers have ever seen.

This animal is somewhat known, largely invented, and reveals to us the fabulous imagination of embroiderers, a field—probably the only one—where anything goes! Our subject is called Poisson d’ Avril that will be held in April 2025 in Nantes."

 

The Red Sea

Under the hot water, the world seemed strange. The light bathed everything in a blood-red glow. The fish swam silently. The seabed, covered with black, burning sand, seemed as if the ocean was in the grip of a secret fever. The corals bent and twisted, as if struggling to survive in the unbearable heat. The sea carried within it a raw power, an energy that could explode at any moment, like a dormant volcano waiting to reach its peak.

The Red Sea, detail

My work was shown in the Summer Exhibition Insecten Uitvergroot in Musum De Koperen Knop in Hardinxveld-Giessendam.