2004 Press Releases
National Grant Boosts Expansion of the Innovative Quilt Index
Louisville, Kentucky and East Lansing, Michigan, November 1, 2004- The Quilt Index is changing the face of quilt research and providing unprecedented resources at the Center for the Quilt Online. This Alliance for American Quilts collaboration with Michigan State University Museum, in partnership with MSU's MATRIX - The Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online has been awarded a nearly half-million dollar grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Washington, D.C., to lead a national initiative to link and access the repositories of museums and libraries around the country.
The $495,996 award, from the IMLS's National Leadership Grant for Library-Museum Collaboration program, supports the further development and expansion of the Quilt Index as an innovative national model. In this new phase, the grant will support new Index partnerships with the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum; the Museum of the American Quilter's Society; the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum; the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries; and the Winedale Center for the Quilt at the Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin. This phase will expand the Quilt Index to more than 15,000 quilts and the associated documentation available for searches across the collections for patterns, individual quiltmakers, themes, techniques, and many other characteristics. Moreover, it will result in a model for repositories--of any size and anywhere in the world--to make thematic collections of any kind more accessible and useful for education and research.
Tradition meets technology
The Quilt Index idea was incubated by The Alliance for American Quilts, a nonprofit organization comprised of a broad range of key scholars, curators, librarians, and quilt artists in the U.S. dedicated to the study, preservation, and sharing of American quilt history. With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Index was developed and piloted by MATRIX and the Michigan State University Museum, in partnership with The Alliance and three national partners with significant repositories of state quilt documentation data.
The Quilt Index merges tradition with technology and springs from the work of a uniquely-specialized team of researchers and experts who are committed to making significant quilt-related data accessible for research and teaching as well as developing replicable applications of technology in the humanities. Already the pilot phase of the Quilt Index has resulted in material that services the collection management needs of individual repositories and, at the same time, makes their collections accessible to worldwide users.
In support of learning
National Leadership Grants provide an opportunity for libraries and museums to develop collaborative approaches for addressing the needs of a learning society. The ultimate goal is to enhance public service in support of learning, and institutions are encouraged to develop programs in research, technology, preservation development, and community-based partnerships. The awards in this IMLS funding category are highly competitive and the Quilt Index was one of only 19 recipients nationally. For more on the awards, see the IMLS web site at http://www.imls.gov/whatsnew/current/092104.htm.
"At IMLS, we recognize that museums and libraries share a fundamental educational mission. They exist to support learning," explains Robert Martin, director of the Institute. "When museums and libraries join forces, their partnerships can be more powerful and their projects can reflect the best thinking in the realm of lifelong, informal thinking. It is our hope that these grants will provide models for the best practices of tomorrow's museums and libraries."
Principal Quilt Index partners
The Alliance for American Quilts, a national nonprofit organization founded in 1993 and headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, supports and develops projects to document, preserve, and share the history and stories of quilts and quiltmakers. The Alliance brings together institutions and individuals from the creative, scholarly and business worlds of quiltmaking to advance the recognition of quilts in American culture. For more information, visit www.centerforthequilt.org or contact Shelly Zegart or Karen Musgrave, (502) 897-3819 (tel and fax).
Michigan State University Museum, the state's natural and cultural history museum, is home of the Great Lakes Quilt Center. The museum has a long history of engagement in research, education, exhibitions and service projects related to quilts, and holds a collection of more than 500 quilts, quilt-related ephemera and documentation. For more information, visit http://www.museum.msu.edu or contact Marsha MacDowell, (517) 355-2370 (tel).
MATRIX - The Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences at Michigan State University is devoted to the application of new technologies in humanities and social science teaching and research. It creates and maintains online resources, provides training in computing and new teaching technologies and creates forums for the exchange of ideas and expertise in new teaching technologies. For more information, visit http://www.matrix.msu.edu. or contact Professor Mark Kornbluh, (517) 355-9300 (tel); (517) 355-8363 (fax).
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The Alliance for American Quilts Offers a Unique "Place" to Belong
Louisville, Kentucky, August 18, 2004-The Alliance for American Quilts has announced a new opportunity for everyone who loves quilts to be a part of history as a Charter Member. Members of The Alliance will be active participants in ensuring that our great quilt heritage is documented, preserved and, most importantly, shared at the Center for the Quilt Online. Membership also comes with many benefits and opportunities for those who join.
The Center for the Quilt Online already shares incredible, FREE resources with everyone who cares about quilts. As Alliance President Shelly Zegart said, "The Center for the Quilt Online is the place to go for information about American quilts and quiltmakers-from our Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories oral histories, to the Quilt Index database of quilts, to web documentaries of the "Quilt Treasures" who made the quilt revival possible, to wonderful films in streaming video, to opportunities to get advice and information from quilt experts. Membership adds great value to what is already available."
For as little as $50, new Charter Members receive a handsome limited-edition Alliance pin; advance email notification of Alliance projects, plans, and activities; invitations to quilt event openings, lectures, and symposia; access to special members-only pages on the website; and website recognition for their support. For membership at higher levels, Members may receive signed books, invitations to private museum receptions and private guided tours of quilt exhibitions or museums, provided freely by the members of The Alliance's board of directors.
For example, one of the first exclusive offerings on the members-only pages is a pattern for a block designed by Alliance board member and quilt artist Yvonne Porcella. It is from The Voice of You and Me 2004, the second raffle quilt created by Yvonne and quilt artist and board member Karen Musgrave to benefit The Alliance. This year's quilt is a naïve rendition of a Baltimore Album-style quilt made with 1850s reproduction fabrics.
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Take a Chance and Save Quilt History with "The Voice of You and Me 2004"
Louisville, Kentucky, August 11, 2004- Well-known quilt artists Yvonne Porcella and Karen Musgrave have collaborated on the quilt, "The Voice of You and Me 2004," to support the work of The Alliance for American Quilts. The Alliance for American Quilts, a nonprofit organization, uniquely joins people who love, study, collect, and make quilts to ensure that our nation's great quilt heritage is documented, preserved and, most importantly, shared at the Center for the Quilt Online.
This second in the series of quilts titled "The Voice of You and Me" is a real departure for art quilters Porcella and Musgrave, both of whom are Alliance board members. Instead of a modern-looking art quilt, the two created a naïve rendition of a Baltimore Album-style quilt, made with 1850s reproduction fabrics provided by P & B Textiles and batting provided by Hobbs Bonded Fibers. The quilting on the 70" x 60" quilt was donated by Nancy Brieschke of Cedar House Quilting in Sandwich, Illinois. Tickets are $5.00. The drawing for the quilt will be held in Louisville, Kentucky on May 18, 2005 at the Garner-Furnish Studio.
"This quilt is my connection to the past so I can support the present, as I create for the future, because I know that quilts matter," said Karen Musgrave, of Naperville, Illinois. Yvonne Porcella, of Modesto, California said, "This quilt gives the feeling of hearts and hands and home. The feeling is one of reminiscing about antique quilts and those anonymous women who made unusual pictures. These are the women we will never meet but they give us a warm feeling, and we love the sense of style they offer with their handwork."
A pattern for one of the quilt's blocks is available to members of The Alliance. For information on membership, to purchase tickets and to learn more about The Alliance for American Quilts, visit the Center for the Quilt Online, contact The Alliance (502/897-3819).
The Center for the Quilt Online shares incredible, FREE resources with everyone who cares about quilts. At the Center for the Quilt Online, you can find:
- Quilt Query-Experts from our incredible board-including Marsha MacDowell, Penny McMorris, Yvonne Porcella, Julie Silber, Merikay Waldvogel, Janice Wass, and Shelly Zegart-will answer your questions about quilts, including care, display, history, restoration, and evaluation.
- Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories-The Alliance's extensive oral history project, with hundreds of in-depth interviews with quiltmakers across the U.S.
- Quilt Treasures-Documentary web portraits of key figures in the great 20th century Quilt Revival-including Virginia Avery, Cuesta Benberry, Jinny Beyer, Jean Ray Laury, Bonnie Leman, and Yvonne Porcella.
- The Quilt Index-A growing digital reference library, with searchable information and photographs of more than 1,300 historic and contemporary quilts.
- Boxes Under the Bed™-A national project to ensure the preservation of historic quilt-related materials, such as patterns, letters, and clippings from publications
- Special Features-Film clips from "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," "Hearts and Hands," and "Quilts in Women's Lives."
- H-Quilts-The lively internet discussion forum.
The Alliance for American Quilts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, implements its projects in partnership with institutions and organizations nationally, including three regional centers- the Center for American Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware, the Great Lakes Quilt Center at the Michigan State University Museum, and the Center for American History at the University of Texas. Other Alliance partners include the Library of Congress American Folklife Center, and MATRIX - The Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online.
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Alliance for American Quilts Launches Streaming Video from Important Quilt Films
The Alliance for American Quilts has just launched streaming video from three of the most important documentary films about quilts ever made:
- The Quilts of Gee's Bend, created to accompany the current traveling exhibition of the same name
- Two influential films by Pat Ferrero: Hearts and Hands and Quilts in Women's Lives
The films can be accessed at www.centerforthequilt.org/specialfeatures
The Alliance for American Quilts is dedicated to making high quality quilt research and information available to everyone. As part of that effort, The Alliance is working with scholars, curators, film makers, collectors, and institutions to bring important contributions to quilt study to the internet. The Alliance's Special Features pages present a variety of resources that significantly enhance understanding of the quilt's central place in American history, art, and society.
The Quilts of Gee's Bend
The Gee's Bend film takes viewers inside the isolated African-American community of Gee's Bend, Alabama, and introduces them to a remarkable group of quiltmakers whose work is taking the museum world by storm. Viewers see the women quilting together, and hear them singing gospel songs and talking about what quiltmaking means to them. What they say cuts to the heart of what quilts are all about-family, community, beauty, creativity, and artistic expression.
The Alliance is grateful to the Tinwood Alliance, organizers of the Quilts of Gee's Bend exhibition, for permitting use of their video on the Web.
Films by Pat Ferrero
Pat Ferrero's two classic quilt films, made in the 1980s, are still relevant today, and should be seen by everyone who cares about quilts. Hearts and Hands describes the roles women and quilts played in the great movements and events of the 19th-century-from the Civil War and the abolition of slavery to Temperance and Suffrage.
Quilts in Women's Lives was the first film to document living quiltmakers and what quilts mean to them.
The Alliance thanks Pat Ferrero for sharing clips from her award-winning films, and BERNINA® of America for sponsoring Quilts in Women's Lives.
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Alliance Raffle Quilt Winner Announced
The drawing for The Alliance's first raffle quilt, "The Voice of You and Me," was held Saturday April 24, and the quilt was won by Marsha and David Roth of Louisville, Kentucky. The Roths are very excited about winning the quilt, and plan to hang it in their new home. We hope to have pictures of the Roths accepting the quilt posted here soon.
The raffle brought in a total of $7777 for The Alliance for American Quilts, which will go to support our many projects. The Alliance thanks everyone who purchased raffle tickets, and quilt artists Yvonne Porcella and Karen Musgrave, who created the quilt for us.
Yvonne and Karen are already hard at work on our next raffle quilt, which will be a folky block-style sampler made with reproduction fabrics donated by P & B Fabrics. We will begin offering tickets soon and will post photos and information about the quilt here as soon as it is completed. Stay tuned!!