Thursday, July 14, 2005

Blogs

The quilt art list is all in an uproar again. This time the victim appears to be Blogs (and by extension bloggers). Another tempest in a teapot, I guess, but boy, do some people sound resentful.

I'm thoroughly enjoying this experience, but agree that it is certainly not for everyone. I love reading the blogs of members of the Artful Quilters Ring and seeing the work that others, of all skill and talent levels, are doing. It has been fun to go down the list a few a day to see what is going on in the lives of so many disparate women with a common love of fiber. There are obviously some blogs I visit more often - sometimes leaving comments, sometimes not. I'm new to both the quilting world and to blogging and have a lot to learn; the blogs are both educational and entertaining.

The quiltart list has also been educational and entertaining, but often confrontational about things that are really just personal choices, beliefs, or opinions. Each serves a purpose, and I see no reason to have to choose. The blogs, for me, are remarkably inspirational because I'm a visual person and because I enjoy seeing things in progress. They can be time consuming, but I've found myself more active, not less.

Also, for most members of the Artful Quilters Web Ring, the blogs provide a place for personal reflection and communication with friends and family. They aren't writing exclusively for other quilters or the quiltart list.

5 comments:

  1. I subscribe to a couple of email list, QA being one of them, but the main reasons I tend to lurk on them is that visually they are not appealing and actually for me are more demanding on time to read and less personal (which is why I think they lend themselves more readily to sparks that fly). But I just don't get the debating over the issue at all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are probably right. Less personal means less thought about how someone might take the comments. I get QA on digest and spend a good bit of time reading/ skimming them because the list is usually quite active.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm on QA, but because it's so active, I just read the subjects at the top of my digest, scroll to the number of the mssg I want to read and then delete them. I think it's a useful list and serves its purpose, but so does my blog.

    A lot of their members' current stance on blogs is perplexing to me. I mean, any way that the world can find out more about art quilting is a good thing, isn't it? As art quilters, we push the boundaries. Why shouldn't we do so technologically as well?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Elle, I love the idea of "pushing the technological boundaries"...especially since I'm the original techno-dunce!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I dropped off the QA list because it got overwhelming to read everyday. I prefer the Blog--feels more like stopping by a friend's studio and chatting.

    I also belong to about.com quilting forum & a number of us have moved more attention to our blogs.

    I agree with Elle--what's the point of shutting ourselves off? getting the word out on art quilts is good and forming friendships is better.

    ReplyDelete

Good to hear from you!