Fifty years ago, no one bothered pairing the adjective Amish with the noun quilt. Few people outside Amish settlements knew there was anything distinct about the types of patchwork bedcovers Amish families kept folded in cedar chests or displayed on their guest beds. Yet in the intervening years, Amish quilts have shifted in status from obscurity to sought-after artworks.

“The show is objects in space and sculpture, and it removes the pre-conception of quilts as private and valueless.”
– Luke Haynes

“These works reveal an overarching awareness on the part of the artists of the cycles of creation and destruction that bring about change. Each, in its way, communicates a sense of the fragility and poignancy of our human condition.

“The art speaks of the passage of time and how we assemble meaning from experience.... Additional layers of interpretation are exposed when we see these works in the context of current cultural turmoil. This informed my thinking as I reviewed the submissions.”

— Risë Nagin, December 2016
Juror’s Statement

Sponsored by the Japan Handicraft Instructors’ Association, an organization promoting handcraft arts through training and publications in Japan for more than 45 years, the Quilt Japan competition began in 1989 and became an international competition in 2005. The biennial contest is the largest in Japan and one of the most prestigious in the world. Only original works that have neither been previously exhibited nor published are accepted for judging.

On August 21, Lincoln will experience its first total eclipse in recorded history. While solar eclipses occur about once every 18 months, they are typically only seen in a specific area once every 375 years. To celebrate this moment, the International Quilt Museum will open a special pop-up exhibition of quilts August 18-20 in the Dillow Conservation Work Room.

The first 1970s quilt I bought reminded me of my childhood, especially summers spent at the community pool. As I accumulated more quilts—many made from polyester double-knit fabrics—the critics had plenty to say. People would actually make faces when I talked about polyester quilts. I didn’t care. I was enthralled. When I started bringing the quilts to show-and-tell with the local quilt guild, they were better appreciated. Part of that was generational—the group had a sense of Modern art, and the quilts’ aesthetic prompted a certain nostalgia in people who had come of age in the 1970s.

“I map the state where I live and document an internal and external landscape. I work with cloth and with piecing and quilting because of their references to human scale, human touch, and human occupation. With image and stitch I communicate the beauty and diversity of Nebraska, revealed over time and across distance. I want to attend to what is unseen as well as to what is visible, and value what is lost as well as what persists.”

-Elizabeth Ingraham

Something quilted this way comes . . .

The International Quilt Museum will share some of its most boo-tiful and spook-tacular pieces in “The Haunting of Quilt House,” a pop-up exhibit celebrating Halloween, October 27-29.

In addition to viewing specially selected pieces, there will be a scavenger hunt available, with answers hidden in the quilts. Visitors who come wearing their Halloween costumes will receive free admission and they can Trick or Treat at the front desk on their way out.

In the 1820s and 1830s, American quilts were increasingly made from pieced blocks—generally squares made up of smaller squares or triangles. American quiltmakers introduced the practice of alternating pieced blocks with un-pieced blocks made of a solid color or a single print, and set these elements straight (perpendicular to the edges of the quilt) or “on-point” (at 45° angles). Blocks were then attached to each other, or to strips of fabric called “sashing.” Unlike earlier quilts, which often featured multiple borders, block-style quilts generally had single borders or none at all.

Patchwork holds a special place in the folk art of Central Asia. In this region of diverse people, cultures, and landscapes, the act of sewing pieces of cloth together can be both sacred and commonplace. Everyday objects gain beauty through the display of plentiful fabrics, but they also acquire a mystical quality. Central Asians have long honored the power of talismans to guard against illness and malevolent spirits, fashioning protective amulets from patchwork and other textiles.