Now Touring: How to Spend Your Summer Vacation

It’s not too early to be thinking about how you might spend at least some of those quilty travel dollars this summer. Of course, a resort with a full-service spa menu always seems to crop up on our wish list, but we do recognize there are other ways to indulge. For a stitcher, that might mean gazing at stitched art. Destination: quilt museum!

Now, many museums may have a healthy textile or quilt section, or have changing exhibits that highlight quilts. (And please do support those facilities with your admission dollar.) But when it comes to quiltiness of the major museum kind, well, there’s a select group that are all quilt, all the time. Here are a choice few from that total-quilt fraternity:

International Quilt Study Center & Museum

University of Nebraska

Lincoln, Nebraska

http://www.quiltstudy.org/about_us/ 

This center, housed in the University’s Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design in the College of Education and Human Sciences, reportedly has the largest publicly held quilt collection in the world, including more than 3,500+ quilts dating from the 1700s to the present, and representing more than 25 countries.

One of its current exhibits is Jean Ray Laury: Getting It All Together, a retrospective of 40 quilts and other artworks, sketchbooks and personal archival material donated by this beloved and well-known quilter, teacher and author before her death last year. Beginning in the 1960s, Laury helped revitalize American craft in general, and deeply influenced contemporary quiltmaking, particularly the California studio art quilt movement.

The National Quilt Museum

Paducah, Kentucky

http://www.quiltmuseum.org

This non-profit museum organization, founded by Bill and Meredith Schroeder of American Quilters Society fame, celebrated its 20^th anniversary last year, and is home to three galleries showcasing more than 150 works of fiber art in frequently changing exhibits.

The NQM actually has the distinction of being named the National Quilt Museum by the U.S. Congress in 2008, due in part because of its collection quilts from 46 of the 50 states and 16 countries, and its mission to educate the local, national and international public about the art, history and heritage of quiltmaking.

Current exhibitions include acCENT! Art Quilts of the United Kingdom, showcasing some of the most respected contemporary fiber artists in the U.K. with their fiber-based commentary on serious issues such as politics, crime and health concerns.  (And for many, this highly acclaimed exhibition
represents their first appearance hanging on U.S. walls.)

At the “fun” end of the quilting spectrum, you can also see the latest winners of an annual NQM competition, New Quilts from an Old Favorite, where entrants are asked to riff off a traditional block style and create a new look. This year’s “old fave” is Baskets & Antique Basket Quilts.

Texas Quilt Museum

LaGrange, Texas

www.texasquiltmuseum.org/

Although a relative newcomer on the q-museum scene (and focused largely on quiltmaking in Texas), this well-pedigreed not-for-profit facility deserves
a place on your to-see list.

The Texas Quilt Museum is the brainchild of Karey Bresenhan and
Nancy Puentes, who are also the driving force behind Quilts Inc., which hosts the International Quilt Festivals and International Quilt Markets every year.

The TQM digs are two 1800s-era buildings in LaGrange, where rotating
exhibits of both historical and contemporary Texas quilts are displayed against the brick walls, high ceilings and time-worn hardwood floors.

La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum

La Conner, Washington

http://www.laconnerquilts.com/

Here’s another must-see museum housed in history, this time the 1891 Gaches Mansion in the artistic waterfront town of La Conner, Washington. The La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum was founded in 1997, and tempts visitors with three stories of quilts and textiles ranging from traditional to contemporary, with a focus on works from the Northwest. On the first floor, Victorian-era furnishings complement changing selections from the growing permanent collection.

Right now at the La Conner, you can see two contemporary art quilt exhibits, one showcasing the works of quilt artist Carol Taylor, and the other, Deep Spaces, curated by Larkin Van Horn. And for tulip fans, there’s the La Conner Tulip Festival Challenge exhibit.

Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum

Golden, Colorado

www.rmqm.org

This small, but charming, museum is set on a main street  in the Wild West-flavored town of Golden, Colorado. It came into being in 1990, largely due to the energies and passion of Golden resident Eugenia Mitchell.  The growing collection of 500+ pieces includes quilts that span the scope of
quilting, from humble bed coverings from the 1800s to contemporary art pieces.

Those with a researcher’s heart should not miss the RMQM’s  Sandra Dallas
Library, which has more than over 3,000 volumes featuring  out-of-print literature, technique resources, historic patterns and research documents.

You’ve got just  a few short days to see Male Call, an  exhibit of quilts made by men, including two of our faves, Jimmy McBride and Shawn Quinlan. Check the website to see what’s next in this very viewer-friendly museum.

San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

San Jose, California

http://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/about_us.html

This 35-year-old  organization is reportedly the first museum in the U.S. to focus exclusively on  quilts and textiles as an art form, and is noted in part for its highly successful educational outreach program for K-12 students, as well as educational programming for adults.

Its collection encompasses 850+ quilts, garments and textiles, including the Porcella Collection of ethnic textiles and garments from noted fiber artist Yvonne Porcella acquired in 1999. That acquisition increased the San Jose Museum’s collection by a third, and it now represents 176 of the 194 nations in the world.

Now showing in San Jose? Well, if you hurry, you can catch the end of the juried Quilt National Returns to San Jose. Then beginning in mid-May, you can catch the Mark Adams exhibit, which spans 40 years of this now-deceased quilt artist’s work.

New England Quilt Museum

Lowell, Massachusetts

www.nequiltmuseum.org/

Other q-museums around the country may claim larger
collections, but this one has the cachet of being in the historic center of the
U.S. textile industry, as well as being the site of the first urban National Park  designated to celebrate that significant history. And its collection of 400 antique and contemporary quilts and tops is complemented by a cache of related textile and sewing items that add layers of meaning when considering the history of American quilt-making.

The NEQM celebrates its 25^th anniversary this year, and has big fun planned, including a garden party and tea, the Lowell Quilt Festival in August, a “wine down” reception and an anniversary quilt challenge.

And this is one museum you probably won’t have to drag your sweetie to, because one of its summertime exhibits is the Fenway Park Centennial, a quilty celebration of the 100^th birthday of this bastion of baseball.

Begging for more?

Many fine arts, decorative arts and general museums across the country also have truly fine quilt and textile collections in their greater holdings. (Which just means more places to visit…yay!) For a list of quilter-recommended museums with good textile collections, visit the Quilt History website at http://www.quilthistory.com/museums.htm. And if you’ve got a good one that simply must be added to our bucket lists, comment on this post and share the name and website info. We’re all travelers in this great q-universe!