"I especially thank Ardis for believing in all of us.”
— Susan Shie, studio quilt artist

Ardis Maree Butler (December 5, 1925 - July 7, 2011) was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and raised in Lincoln and Omaha. She married Robert G. James of Ord, Nebraska, in 1949, and they raised three children: Robert Jr., Catherine, and Ralph. They made their home in Chappaqua, New York.

A person’s name is more than a few letters and sounds that form a recognizable word. Names like Lady Gaga or Michael Jordan or Bill Clinton immediately conjure up enough stories and pictures in the mind to fill many pages. In other words, a name can represent everything we know about a person.

Jean Ray Laury had it all together, so it seems, and she taught other women how to live a balanced life in the roles they chose, making room for everyday creativity. 

This was Laury’s feminist viewpoint, one that appealed to women for whom a radical change in lifestyle was neither practical nor desirable.

The artists featured in this exhibition are members of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), an organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through exhibitions, publications, and professional-development opportunities. The IQM is pleased to partner with SAQA in this collaborative exhibition project.

Indigo has colored American cloth for centuries. Derived from several different plants in the indigofera family, indigo dye produces a multitude of colorfast blues, from pale sky blue to deep midnight blue. Its range of longlasting colors made it wildly popular and highly valued when it was first imported from India to Europe in the late 1400s, resulting in the nickname “Blue Gold.”

Antique American textiles of all kinds bear the mark of indigo. Fabrics for clothing, interior furnishings, and bedding all were dyed or printed with indigo.

As the United States evolved into a modern, industrialized, and urbanized society in the late 1800s, Americans gazed with nostalgia toward the pre-industrial colonial era. For many Americans, the colonial era was the nation’s Golden Age, a period that experienced the fullest flowering of distinctive American culture and virtues. “Colonial” was defined loosely, encompassing anything pre-Victorian (pre-1840). Americans romanticized the past, imagining it held a simpler way of life and a more perfect society.

“Posing with Patchwork: Quilts in Photographs, 1855-1955” presents a group of antique and vintage photographs in which quilts are part of the scene. The quilts in these photographs are one element in a larger, human story; maybe it’s a story about family relationships, about remembering, about identity, about community. Sometimes we can pull the stories from the shadows by looking for clues: inscriptions on the photograph itself, elements of costume and fashion, or the way in which the quilt is used as a prop—from acting as a decorative backdrop to blanketing a deceased loved one.

“In many of the blocks, the corners of the pieces didn’t fit too well. I had to mention it, and she came right back with, ‘Well, if you can do better, prove it!! If not, keep still.’ Soooooo- What else could I do?”

Over the next fifty years he made more than 300 quilts! For the first 25 years his quilts were family projects because his father, mother, and wife hand quilted them.

Quilts tell stories. Materials, techniques, and designs illuminate trade routes, technology, regional traits, and connections between quiltmakers. A quilt speaks for a silent and anonymous maker from the past. 

The quilting stitches themselves are an important part of a quilt’s story, yet that story may be hidden because stitching patterns are not easily “read.” For whole cloth quilts, the stitches whisper the story, as the subtle, tone-on-tone stitching veils the intricate patterns.

Collecting is one of the most popular American pastimes. People love to acquire groups of related items, searching out rare and mint examples in pursuit of the elusive goal of assembling a comprehensive and premier collection.

Almost every type of object has its devotees. An Internet search for “collecting in America” reveals websites dedicated to candy containers, beer cans, road maps, and spark plugs, as well as traditional domains of fine art, stamps, and coins. Quilts, too, are another popular collecting area.