New Leadership for Nonprofit Alliance for American Quilts
September 28, 2007
Asheville, North Carolina, September 28, 2007 – The nonprofit Alliance for American Quilts announced new leadership, voted in at a board meeting in San Francisco in August.
Amy Milne continues as the executive director of this national nonprofit, operating from its Asheville, N.C. office. Replacing the outgoing president, Alan Jabbour, are co-presidents Linda Pumphrey of Cincinnatti, Ohio and Le Rowell of Washington, D.C. The new vice president is Meg Cox of Princeton, N.J. and the new secretary is Janneken Smucker of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
As well as being geographically diverse, these four women represent very different aspects of American quilting today, which is fitting for this organization and typical of its board. The mission of the Alliance is to preserve, document and share the stories of quilts and quiltmakers and that covers a broad range, including both historic and modern quilts, and showcasing not just the efforts of quiltmakers but celebrating the contributions of scholars, curators, collectors and others who figure in today's vibrant, sophisticated quilt culture.
Co-president Linda Pumphrey comes from a family with five generations of quilters, and she is national sales manager for Leggett & Platt, where she's in charge of Mountain Mist batting.
Her co-president Le Rowell is an independent curator and lecturer who has produced numerous exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad and introduced American-style quiltmaking in Bolivia, Portugal, Luxembourg and Kyrgyzstan. Le serves on the AAQ task force that runs its Quilters' S.O.S. – Save Our Stories oral history project. Vice president Meg Cox is a veteran journalist and author who was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal for many years. She has been quilting for 20 years and is the author of the soon-to-be-published book The Quilter's Catalog: A Comprehensive Resource Guide (Workman Publishing).
Secretary Janneken Smucker is a PhD student in the History of American Civilization at University of Delaware. She has a Masters of Arts degree in Textile History/Quilt Studies with a minor in Museum Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The new leadership at the Alliance looks forward to an exciting year, including imminent announcements about the auction of quilts from its "Put A Roof Over Our Head" contest and exhibition, which is finishing up a year-long tour. The AAQ will also be unveiling a revamped website in coming months, and some exciting new projects. To keep up with all these developments and more, sign up for a free e-newsletter at the homepage of the Alliance website,
www.centerforthequilt.org
The Alliance for American Quilts is a national nonprofit organization committed to preserving and sharing the rich stories that quilts tell about our nation's diverse people and communities. We share our wealth of resources principally through a remarkable and accessible website, centerforthequilt.org. For any further information, call or e-mail Meg Cox meg@megcox.com or 609-924-9135
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