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April 9, 2008

Exploring contemporary embroidery

1. Perfect, 2. embroidery lungs and heart dress, 3. Huelle (3), 4. Goldfish, 5. face detail, 6. lungs 002, 7. Breakdance, 8. Manmade #1, 9. Ashtray, 10. ♥ AMOR * n.11, 11. Foxy, 12. At a Crossroads

Hello all, I'm excited to post here on this fab blog (thanks for letting me!). As Floresita mentioned I will be posting about contemporary embroidery, which sounds a lot more daunting than my own description of it,
mixed media embroidery and embroidery in unusual places and surfaces. Both of those descriptions are quite broad and so I think these posts will be too.

To me, contemporary embroidery is any of the following elements and all the imaginable and, as of yet, unimaginable ways of combining them: embroidery with or on unusual materials, in unusual places, by unexpected people (because embroidery is such a female dominated area this will usually mean: embroidery done by guys), embroidery made for unexpected purposes. But possibly even more important elements in contemporary embroidery is the context in which it is made and its subject matter.

That is my definition of contemporary embroidery anyway. And I'm no expert, I just tend to gravitate towards embroidery that breaks away from the 'norm'. So that is what I'll be exploring in these posts. I hope you'll enjoy the journey.

And to finish off the this first post: what does contemporary embroidery mean to you?

4 comments:

  1. I think you captured "contemporary embroidery " really well. To me it is non-traditional embroidery with a modern feel. I'm excited to see what you find for us!

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  2. AWesome - you picked so many of my favorites for that mosaic - I'm excited to see what you'll be posting about, Carina! :)

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  3. I see contemporary embroidery as a centuries-old craft made relevant for today.

    The domesticity of the first 1/3 of the last century made household objects a very natural and family-oriented choice for decorations.

    Medical illustrations are appealing to me because of my former career and the availability of these images through contemporary education and media (how many housewives knew offhand what a neuron looked like in 1940?)

    I see the transfer of pixels to threadcounts as fascinating and contemporary.

    It will be very interesting to follow this thought.

    Thanks!

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  4. hi could you please recommend a place to buy beginner embroidery kits, which are contemporary and like your pictures above. I llike some of Jenny Hart's designs, but not all- eg skull and crossbones( don't like).
    Thanks Trish

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