An artist puts her modern spin on the legacy of quilting and community through storytelling and textile design.
Whether it’s her recent home decor collection featured at Simon’s department store in Quebec or a massive collaborative public art project at the Canadian Museum of Immigration, designer Andrea Tsang Jackson’s crisp, bold work spans a variety of fields, taking traditional forms of art and applying them to a contemporary context with deep purpose and intention.
While earning a Master of Architecture from McGill University, Andrea was inspired by Montreal’s dynamic art scene and studied modernist architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Johnson’s universal principles of functional, clean design. “I’m looking to continually expand my own definitions of what those principles are and how they’re applied to my own work, and then how I see other people’s work,” she says.
Andrea’s interest in mid-century aesthetics led her to design her first modern quilt in 2014 while pregnant with her second child. Inspired by New York-based geometric artist Andy Gilmore, the quilt consisted of 2,000 triangles and 25 different solid colors. It was her first time using solid fabrics; they spoke to her more than the traditional-looking prints she’d used her first time crafting a quilt. From there she jumped into the modern quilting world of designing and educating, and by 2018 she had turned her hobby into a full-time business called Third Story Workshop (named after the home attic where she first started).
Like many devotees of MCM design, Andrea is drawn to neutral hues with pops of color; the traditional, no-frills aesthetic of simple lines and the use of negative space. “It’s a really intentional use of negative space to say something or to make room for other things to shine; to be able to rest your eye or see other things more clearly, geometric shapes combined with organic shapes,” she says. “My approach is very purposeful, very intentional and also very neutral, but with a punch of a bold accent color.”
As an artist, Andrea’s intentions to expand the existing definitions of modernist design principles are fueled by her desire to humanize them with stories that are not her own. Whether on social media or at in-person guild meetings, with quilting she feels a collective sense of “I’m part of a past and I’m part of a future and I’m part of a present group of people that do this thing. We share stories and share words and encourage each other. I want to tell those stories with integrity, and that’s what sparks me but also guides me.”
See more of Andrea Tsang Jackson’s work at 3rd Story Workshop. Want to explore more in the world of Modern Makers like Andrea Tsang Jackson? Keep reading about ceramicist Kate Schroeder, tile makers and clock makers and more! And of course, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for more Atomic Ranch articles and ideas!
