Of the three exhibits on display when I visited, I was especially intrigued by “Signature Cloths, ” a show highlighting quilts decorated with distinctive hand-written and embroidered autographs.
The galleries exhibit just 40-60 quilts at one time – most of the museum’s quilts are packed in acid-free archival boxes and stored in temperature- and humidity-regulated rooms. Over time light deteriorates the delicate fabrics, so the quilts are displayed in windowless rooms with special non-florescent dim lighting. Turns out, the quilts are not displayed in that bright space. I worked in an office across the street from the museum for ten years, yet despite my best intentions, I never ventured inside the museum, which houses more than 4, 200 quilts from around the world.Īs I climbed the broad, curving staircase into the open, sunlit space on the second floor, I expected to be greeted by a cacophony of color. Though I don’t quilt (I don’t sew at all-not even errant buttons or unraveled hems), I’m drawn to quilts like a bee to phlox. I recently visited The International Quilt Study Center & Museum, a 37, 000-square-foot brick and glass building on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln East Campus. I like to imagine my grandmother stitching it, a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray at her side, a pile of scraps at her feet. Despite its ragtag appearance, there is still something appealing about that quilt: the weight of it on me as I lay beneath it, the explosion of colors and patterns, loud and raucous like a carnival. Many of the patches are threadbare, and those originally made of satin have worn away altogether, revealing the dingy cotton batting. It’s also well-used, to the point of disrepair. My grandmother wasn’t a skilled seamstress-the quilt is a motley mix of fabric remnants haphazardly stitched together. My mother used to keep it folded atop her cedar chest in the basement now it makes the rounds from bedroom to bedroom in my own house, depending on who last snagged it.
I have an old quilt stitched by my maternal grandmother.
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