We showcase a different
exhibit every 4 months.
Stop by and enjoy!
Exhibits
Save the dates for the next 2024 exhibits:
Linens and Lace scheduled for May 3 through August 31
Blues in the Night scheduled for September 6 through December 21, 2024.
A Sense of Community
January 5, through April 27, 2024
The Exhibit, A Sense of Community, features signature, album, and friendship quilts. celebrating the ties among people in the quiltmaker’s communities. Although quilts of these types first became popular as Americans moved west and left their old communities behind, signature quilts and friendship quilts continue to be made today. The exhibit includes quilts that are a century old, and quilts that are brand new.
Past Exhibits 2023
Going Around in Quilting Circles May through August 27, 2023
Circles are considered one of the most difficult forms to stitch. But for this exhibit, quiltmakers have produced circles by piecing, appliqué, and quilting them. The exhibit features both vintage quilts from the museum’s collection and contemporary quilts made by local artists. Circles – May through August 27, 2023
Past Exhibits 2022
Stitched Embellishments – January through April 27, 2023
Sometimes quiltmakers take their stitching far beyond the functional. The quilts in this exhibit feature embroidery, couching, beading, pleating, fringing, and much more. It’s not just crazy quilts – the exhibit features traditional, contemporary, and modern quilts, and both functional and art quilts.
“Quilts From Another Angle”
August through December 2022
Join us for “Quilts from Another Angle”. We have quilts ranging from the 1930 to today’s latest, at any number of angles. Some showcase a single angle, some are even shaped to match. Others have more different angles than you may be able to count. There are subtle quilts and bold quilts, familiar quilts and ones you’ve never seen before. Big ones, small ones, as much variety as you can imagine in our small space. We’re having fun with quilts!
Animals Wild and Mild
April 2022 to August 27, 2022
Quilters, today and yesterday, have often depicted the world around them, especially the natural world. The quilts in this exhibit include portraits of particular animals, imagined images of others, and scenes of whole herds in the wild. The animals are sometimes incidental to the rest of the quilt, but more often they are the focus.
Wild
Though quilters are inspired by animals in nature and may have seen some in the wild, others they may have seen only in a zoo or even in just their imagination. Some quilts bring attention to the plights of endangered species, whose beauty and strength may belie their vulnerability.
Mild
What we think of as mild animals are often domesticated, but even they may be wild in their behavior or in the way they are depicted.
Quilters in the 19th century, especially in the album quilts of around 1840, often included working farm animals, with appliquéd horses or oxen.
In the 1920s and 1930s, as people began making quilts specifically for children, they liked to feature whimsical animals, such as kittens in sailor suits. Today’s quilter more often honors favorite animals with a portrait or a quilt of their own.
Multiple Artists:
Lenders
Maggie Bevers
Karen Brun
Ginny Coffman
Marti Cummings
Judy Gelhaus
Laurel Grove
Karen Michaels
Cynthia (Balaz) Moon
Mark Palmer
Laurel Sutton
Marilyn Wilbanks
Karen Windhausen
White Bluffs collection
Makers
Maggie Bevers
Karen Brun
Judy Gelhaus
Laurel Grove
June Jaeger
Eva Imo Lewin
Esther Louaillier
Karen Michaels
Cynthia (Balaz) Moon
Mark & Linda Palmer
Laurel Sutton
Marilyn Wilbanks
Karen Windhausen
Jean Zoet and Ginny Coffman
“How Old is That Quilt?”
January 8, 2022 to April 23, 2022
All the quilts are from our collection
Although signing and dating quilts is recommended today, that hasn’t always been the case. So how do we know how old a quilt is?
Family stories offer some information, such as “Great-grandma made this for Aunt Maude when she was a baby”, but such memories are often incomplete or even inaccurate. Two more tangible sources of clues are fabric and style.
Certain fabrics have only been available at certain times, and certain styles have gained and lost in popularity. But many quilters have fabric stashes accumulated over a long time, and they may have held on to a piece of fabric for many years before finding exactly the right quilt to use it in.
And styles may continue to be sewn long after their peak of popularity, whether because a quilter happens to like making that style, or first discovers it later on.
Condition is one way you might expect to date a quilt. But quilts don’t all get the same kind of wear and tear. The oldest quilts we see are often in surprisingly good condition, because they were kept for show. Utility quilts were used until they wore out and then they might become the batting for a new quilt. A baby quilt dragged around as a security blanket will be in wretched condition before the baby is 5 years old.
Some fabrics show their age. It may not be possible to assign them to a particular year, but old silks were infused with heavy metals that eventually cause them to fall apart in shreds (to “shatter”).
Just as fashion emphasizes particular colors in different eras, so do quilts. In part the differences reflect the dyes available. Early dyes were necessarily drawn from nature, mostly plants but also minerals and even insects. In 1856, synthetic dyes began to be developed, offering a wider range of colors to choose from. The dyes were not always colorfast, so that greens have become tan, or possibly blue or yellow. Fabrics dyed with colorfast “turkey red” often disintegrate, with streaks showing the white core as the outer layer of the fiber wears away.
“Storytellers”
Novelists, playwrights, poets, composers, painters, all tell stories. Quiltmakers tell stories too. Just as books, cave paintings, the works of Shakespeare and Homer, our daily diet of TV and movies, manga or anime, paintings, songs, and poetry bring the audience tales, quilts can describe events, share the maker’s happiness, teach history, or provide a catharsis after a crisis.
Telling stories in cloth is not new. Native American and African peoples have long told stories in cloth. The Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the Norman conquest of England. The tepees of the Great Plains had tales of hunting or warfare painted on their surfaces. The molas of Latin America describe local happenings. Today’s quiltmakers join these traditions with their story quilts. The stories could be about the quiltmaker’s own life, Bible stories, favorite books, fantasies, dreams and wishes, historic events, or legends.
Around the time of the US Bicentennial in 1976, many quiltmakers and groups of quiltmakers were inspired to make quilts depicting the history of their towns or of their family history of migration. Today, there are some groups that are both quilting bees and book clubs. These groups select a book and members create quilts depicting some part of the book or story.
How can a quilt tell a story? Appliqué might depict a pivotal scene from a familiar story. Paint or embroidery can provide realistic images of an entire plot or just refer to it. Pieced blocks with their traditional names can remind us of long-ago triumphs and trials. Fabric prints or photographs can illustrate key times, places, or ideas.
In cased you missed it…
See some videos of our previous exhibits.
Hanford Anniversary Quilt