WHY QUILTS MATTER....and the Modern Movement

This morning my inbox had a link to a new interview with Marianne Fons, of Fons and Porter fame, from one of my favorite sites WHY QUILTS MATTER, the Kentucky Quilt Project blog.  For those not familiar, they independently produced and funded the 8 part series Why Quilts Matter: History, Art and Politics documentary series that ran on PBS thru independent distributors.  It was so well done, and informative!

I enjoy Fons and Porter, even visiting their shop in Iowa with a friend of mine on a cross-country RV junket a few years ago.  The interview tells how she got her start, and how her partnership formed with Liz Porter.

The most surprising part of the interview was about the modern quilt movement.  I’ve been researching this segment for some time, primarily asking myself one question………….how are aging baby boomer quilters going to ensure our love of quilting is passed down to the following generations?  Recently I joined a group of local ladies to create a new quilt guild (members at 85 and climbing already) and this became one of my tops concerns.

Marianne was asked what she sees are some of the greatest changes in the quilt movement in the past five years.  “I’ve been totally pumped by the ‘modern movement'. Many of the quilters attracted to the ‘modern’ aesthetic are youngish, and I have enjoyed the infusion of energy brought by young quilters, especially in the industry side.”

Meaning…..new fabric designers, and their emerging styles. Tula Pink, Joel Dewberry, Denyse Schmidt, Parson Gray to name a few….plus those more familiar names Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler, all deeply entrenched in the modern movement.

You can see what I wrote about the modern movement in previous posts.  You can also ‘Google’ modern quilts, modern quilt books, and modern quilt designers to see lots of wonderful examples that help explain what this exciting category is.  They are fresh and beautiful!  Or visit QUILTCON and the Modern Quilt Guild, the national organization devoted to the modern movement.  

I feel pretty safe that the future of quilting is in very good hands with the many younger people involved in this movement.  My only regret is I won’t be around in a hundred years to see how things have evolved, but I suspect quilts will still VERY MUCH matter.

For more information:

www.whyquiltsmatter.org

www.quiltcon.com

www.themodernquiltguild.com

Red and White Quilts........the Joanna S. Rose collection

Red and White quilts

Back in March 2011 three centuries of red and white quilts were on display at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan.  Sponsored by the American Folk Art Museum, the exhibit brought together 650 red and white quilts from the single collection of Joanna S. Rose, the largest single exhibition of quilts ever held in NYC, free to the public no less.  The magical, spiral method to display the quilts was spell-binding. Hard to imagine one person collecting 650 quilts let alone all red and white.   Google it to learn more........

I’ve been captivated by this effort…the quilts, the display method, one single collection ever since.  I traveled to NYC for work on a regular basis, but missed the exhibit by a day due to a rescheduled customer meeting.  Many regrets on this one!

The minute we launched our new quilt guild last September….BIG RED QUILTERS GUILD, I had this idea swirling in the back of my head to do some type of guild wide project along these lines.  Perhaps a year-long challenge, followed with some type of exhibit, connecting our guild name to the red and white category.  I presented the idea at one of our board meetings.  The consensus was yes, we should do something. Naturally, it will be much smaller.

Details have been finalized, and will be announced at our next meeting.  Knowing the details, I couldn’t wait.  I began pulling reds from my stash, planning, organizing, etc.  My quilt is traditional, my original design, involving 26 scrappy shades of red.  Civil wars, modern, batiks....you name it.  If it reads 'red', its auditioned.  

When finished it will have 1,050 hand applique leaves, over 90 feet of 1/3” bias tape red stems, on a white on white background, and who knows how many hours of stitching. I have some time to decide if I will hand quilt or do my own machine quilting, but you can bet I’m tossing it around in my head.

Here’s a snippet to tease your red and white sensibilities…….the many fabrics and bias tape I made up ready to go.   I’ll be sure to post when all the quilts are done.  Maybe a teaser in between………but if you don't hear from me for awhile, you'll know what I'm doing!