Jill……Starting a quilting blog has been technologically challenging: good brain exercise. We’re followers of a few other blogs and enjoy both the artistic and sometimes personal statements. There is sometimes a connection, identity with certain life happenings and processes. So we’ll try to keep this focused on design with brief connections to our personal lives. Perhaps you’ll relate (or not).
The last couple of weeks have been full of the personal processes. Both Marny’s and my youngest have each graduated and moved really far away. I turned 60. For me, the numbers are a reflection of fewer years ahead than behind! The time is NOW to make a design statement.
We love helping customers with fabric selection. At the Quilting Connection, we sell a lot of kits but like to encourage more personal choices, making one- of-a-kind quilts. This site will encourage that same individuality. We hope that ideas presented here allow you to discover your own vision.
So as we search for our vision, we ask you to join in the process. We would like for this site to be interactive. Next week, we will inform you on how to become “friends” and publish your photos on Flickr. (Just in case you don’t know.) Our partnership involves discipline, just like exercise and healthy eating. Find a buddy and meet as often as you can: encourage and offer constructive comments.
Challenge: We’re searching for definitions of both MODERN and CONTEMPORARY. Please don’t look it up in the dictionary (we’ve already done that)! What defines these for you personally? Share your ideas. We will be giving away a fat quarter bundle of Robert Kaufman’s organic Free To Grow. To enter our giveaway, make comments to this post within the next two weeks. We will announce the winner on our June 29 post. (For those who don’t know how to post comments, we will give the instructions next week.)
Until next Tuesday!
Wow that's quite a challenge. To me modern & contemporary mean new and bold bright colors and styles. I'm sure everyone has their own ideas which is great. That way we can all see new and exciting projects. I just know for myself when I think of 30's prints, I don't think of them being contemporary. I love the big, bright prints with blocks of color and no little boxed in motifs.
ReplyDeleteTo me modern means related to what is new now, today. Contemporary means a historic item modern but still having aspects of the old.
ReplyDeleteModern and contemporary can be together but they don't have to be..in my opinion.
As both relate to quilting, here's my personal definition of each:
ReplyDeleteMODERN means clean lines, plenty of white, bold colors, bold statements, looking past the rules to allow the creative process to be more organic and unplanned than traditional. Modern quilting keeps the quality, but moves past the rules and the patterns that have been the foundation for quilting for the last 30 years. (before that, quilting was more utilitarian than decorative, in my opinion)
CONTEMPORARY quilting style (to me) is the transition between traditional quilting and modern quilting. It's the stage where quilters were trying out different things, different designs, variations on old patterns and many of them are quite popular today. Contemporary quilters may be more brave with their fabrics, but continue to quilt it into a Log Cabin or Ohio Star pattern.
I definitely want to say, though that neither one is the "opposite" of traditional, just different.
Modern: Anything I am working on I would consider modern.
ReplyDeleteContemporary: Anything that I am working on that I am using some sort of fresh/fun/batik fabrics.
I am one modern and contemporary quilter. I love the bright/fresh/current/fun fabrics. The brighter the better. No dull colors or patterns for me.
Amy Mesenbrink
Modern and contemporary... When I think of those two words, I think of effective use of color.
ReplyDeleteColor defines us, our emotions, directs our judgement, and is not nearly as subjective as anyone thinks. Blue, almost universally, denotes sadness. Red, anger. Yellow, happiness. White, innocence and purity.
Effective use of color means realizing the power of color, and turning it to our advantage. The Amish are masters of solid color in quilts, and have achieved a timeless modernity to their quilt designs because of this.
Effective use of color means breaking out of our creativity ruts and experimenting with those colors that "just aren't us". If you think of purple, and say, "I'm just not a purple person", you need to work with it and learn its possibilities.
Just found you blog and WOW this is right up my street
ReplyDeleteYour challenge:-
Modern - anything that stretches or warps the traditional formats - or as I would say 'thinking outside the box'
Contemporary - freedom, flowing, colour, patterns, combinations, basically utilizing all that is available to you and exploring and expanding the boundaries
To me, modern is something new and different. This might be some sort of new and different way to use colors together or new and unique designs. I find modern fabrics to be more bright and bold than traditional fabrics, which tend to be more muted and subtle. BUT, modern could also mean using a traditional looking color scheme with a unique pattern or a traditional style pattern with some sort of bright or bold color. In the end, modern is really in the eye of the individual. Modern to one person may not be modern to another. I think we could all agree that the 30s repro prints are not modern, BUT they could be used in a modern pattern to completely change the game.
ReplyDeleteModern - not traditional, a throwing out of conventions and rules, new and unexpected, simple-form designs focusing on line and shape
ReplyDeleteContemporary - current time, as of now, innovative and non-referential
my email: pearlho81 at gmail
As it pertains to quilting...
ReplyDeleteModern: the next best thing, the most current, the "here and now."
Contemporary: more of an "interputation." No right, no wrong. No rules, "when one dares to color outside the lines. Non-traditional.
This is hard because those two words are so often used interchangeably. However, when it pertains to quilting, I feel that "modern" is the opposite of traditional, done without concern for convention and trying to do something new. "Contemporary," however, is up-to-date, trendy with colors and shapes, etc.
ReplyDeletemodern to me: fresh, new ideas, breaking the rules, ever evolving
ReplyDeletecontemporary: shaking things up a little. taking something old, and making it new, putting a modern twist on something old.
Modern & contemporary quilting, to me, is simply a continuation of the creative process thru the present and into the future. Using new techniques, materials, or processes to accomplish the basic creative act of joining fabric & thread as a means of expression. I love it all!
ReplyDeleteModern and contemporary are described in my mind's eye as fresh, exciting, new, something that maybe my grandmother may not have had access too, something that makes you think when you look at it. Also, lots to look at!
ReplyDelete