John M. Walsh III Collection of Contemporary Art Quilts
Living with art quilts by Cynthia Wenslow
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any serious art collectors acquire artwork as an investment, and it is then kept securely and properly stored, seeing the light of day only on special occasions or when it is out on loan to an exhibition. For art quilt collector John Walsh, that isn’t enough; he wants to live with the art quilts he collects. “When I had my house in New Jersey, I also had a business. I would display about four quilts in my house, although I couldn’t display the largest ones,” says Walsh. “I would display another four or five in the office. That was fun because I wouldn’t display them in any room that had windows. Some offices had windows and some did not, and as offices
above: Jack Walsh in front of Cedar Waxwings at the AT&T Parking Lot by Terese Agnew all photos by Cynthia Wenslow
were assigned, I would tell people: ‘You can have a window or you can have a quilt, but you can’t have both!’” Avoiding exposure to light, especially ultraviolet (UV) light, is one of the most fundamental and repeated pieces of conservation advice given to collectors of fiber art. UV light causes textiles to degrade and bleaches the color from fabric. It’s impossible to reverse damage done by light exposure, and it’s cumulative. Although even household light fixtures of various types emit ultraviolet light, natural light is by far the most damaging source. Walsh recently undertook a renovation of his vacation home in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York with an eye to the display of his collection. The result is a stunning gallery space — with an entire wall of windows.
The wooded hillside property was purchased by Walsh’s grandfather some 80 years ago. What now serves as the house started life as the property’s wine cellar in 1854 and is nestled between a hillside and a glen where a creek tumbles down over cascades in a steep decline to a large waterfall and the lake far below. The site naturally presented challenges during the expansion and renovation of the home. “This is a very difficult site,” Walsh says. “It’s just a small point of land where the rock walls fall off on both sides down to the surface of the water. I wanted to expand, but there’s very little room here and I didn’t want to ruin the site.” Working with an architect, Walsh designed the expansion to honor the building’s historic features while SAQA Art Quilt Collector | 3
