COVER STORY
Museum preserves quilting’s past, promotes its future By Donna Williams Lewis A renovated historic cotton warehouse in Carrollton, Ga. is a fitting place for a museum that not only exhibits and interprets the heritage of quilting but is also a breeding ground for future generations of quilters. The Southeastern Quilt & Textile Museum, which opened in 2012, attracts nationally touring exhibitions and visitors from across the country and beyond. The museum offers a wide range of educational opportunities, including quilting expos, lectures, classes for adults Marilyn Hubbard, president of the board of and children, and summer directors of the Southeastern Quilt & Textile camps that usually end up Museum, discusses the history of some with waiting lists. of the quilts in a recent museum exhibit, Marilyn Hubbard, Marti Michell’s Antique Quilts Collection. president of the museum’s board of directors, said Photo by Jay Luzardo/Times-Georgian quilts give people another way to create and enjoy art. Quilting can do everything from “satisfying someone who just wants to have a pretty decoration for their home or to put on their bed…to being a way for people to express basic human emotions,” Hubbard said. “Quilts can be quite powerful works of art.” An upcoming exhibit features quilts that sprang from emotions. Beginning April 5, the museum will host the nationally touring “Sacred Threads Exhibition of Quilts Expressing Life’s Journey: Joy, Inspiration, Healing, Grief and Peace.” In a multisensory experience, museum goers can dial the code on each quilt on their cell phones to hear the spiritual journey of that quilt’s creator.
‘A Thread Runs Through It’
The museum’s current exhibit, hanging through April 25, is “A Thread Runs Through It.” It’s described this way: “A thread runs through fabrics, conversations, families or ideas. Threads are what remain when everything unravels—perhaps as a frayed edge or a tenacious connection.” Presented by Studio Art Quilt Associates members from the Georgia/South Carolina region, the exhibit is a juried show displaying the work of 19 artists. “From quilts that look more like paintings to a quilt made from onion bags and scraps of food packaging at the Atlanta Food Bank, you will see a varied collection,” Hubbard said. The museum’s previous exhibit featured about 30 quilts that are all at least 100 years old from the collection of Atlanta area resident Marti Michell. Michell was recently announced as the 2020 inductee into the Quilters Hall of Fame in Marion, Indiana. She will be inducted July 18 during a three-day celebration of the art of quilting
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MARCH 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com
2/13/20 10:11 AM
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