November 9, 2015
Story by Joe Vinduska
Courtesy photos submitted
Some quilts aren’t made for warmth. Some of them are meant to be stared at in awe and wonderment. These are the types of quilts on display in the National Quilt Museum’s Exhibit that opened Friday in the Shafer Art Gallery.
The annual traveling show’s title this year is “New Quilts from an Old Favorite 2015: Nine Patch.” The exhibit will be up through Dec. 13. The Shafer Gallery is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Admission is free.
Quilters from many U.S. states and several other countries utilized the “nine patch” block designs in imaginative ways, providing a wonderful look at the skills, techniques and creativity of today's quilt-makers.
“Nothing speaks the language of American experience better than the quilt,” Shafer Art Gallery Director Dave Barnes said in regard to the quilt as a medium.
“It evokes a vision of frugal ingenuity, warm domestic interiors and the smell of Grandma’s apple pie. I remember as a very little boy playing under the quilting frame at the Women’s Missionary Council’s Saturday morning quilting bee. The ladies from my father’s church would send their quilts to missionary families as an expression of love and a taste of warmth and home. The art quilts that adorn the walls of the Shafer Gallery are not, however, the kind a church would send to missionaries in the field. They are more to look at than to cuddle under. The quilts in the Gallery are from the finest quilt-making competition in the country and they are always drop-jaw beautiful.”
Finalist quilts featured in the exhibit include:
Radiant Rainbow by Claudette Booker of Fort Smith, Ark.
NOVA by Diane Kay Evans of Forest Ranch, Calif.
Interwoven by Cathy Geier of Waukesha, Wis.
Bubbled Double Nine Patch by Julia Graber of Brooksville, Miss.
Fifty-Eight Nines by Anita Karban-Neef of Cary, Ill.
Nine Patch Carnival by Zeeda Magnuson of Minneapolis, Minn.
Skewed Nine Patch by Judy Martin and Lana Corcoran of Grinnell, Iowa
Modern Nine Patch by Susan Mogen of Mobile, Ala.
Nynepatch Puzzle by Claudia Clark Myers of Duluth, Minn.
Dressed to the Nines by Annette S. Reynolds of Grove City, Ohio
Possibilities by Jan Soules of Elk Grove, Calif.
Red Hot Summer by Sue Turnquist of Tifton, Ga.
Chasing Sunlight by Karen Watts of Mayhill, N.M.
Support for the contest is provided by MODA Fabrics and Janome America, Incorporated.
Quilters wishing to enter future “New Quilts from an Old Favorite” contests can request an entry form by sending an SASE to NQM, PO Box 1540, Paducah, KY 42002-1540 or visiting the museum’s website at quiltmuseum.org. Upcoming themes are “New York Beauty” in 2016 and “Flying Geese” in 2017. The National Quilt Museum is a non-profit institution located in downtown Paducah, Ky. and is supported in part by the Kentucky Arts Council.