"[The] incredible collection called HERstory Quilts: A Celebration of Strong Women, which you can see at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky, through April 9, 2019.
To create HERstory, the museum worked with artist Susanne Miller Jones, who curated the collection of over 100 quilts contributed by 84 artists from 7 different countries. A selection of those quilts—a number of them by Southern hands—became a traveling exhibit, currently showcased at the museum.
“People still make traditional quilts that are beautiful, and they are art—I believe all quilting is art—but what we call fiber art is more like something you would hang on the wall,” Jones explained. “It could be very traditional patchwork but usually it’s not. Art quilters use machine applique and hand applique; they paint; sometimes they create whole cloth quilts where they have hand-painted a scene and then free-motion quilted it, but there’s no piecing involved at all.”
Some 41,000 visitors from all over the world come to the museum every year, said CEO Frank Bennett: “Quilting is in a place in its history where it truly has become an art form. Many people think of the quilt they had on the bed as a kid, but they don’t know what’s possible until they see collections like this.”
By Southern Living