Quilt: A multi-layered textile Touring Quilt House by Suzanne Smith Arney
T
he International Quilt Study Center & Museum (IQSCM), familiarly known as Quilt House, is itself a layered construction — and construct. Rooms open into others and viewers are tantalized throughout the center by architectural details and glimpses of galleries. Located at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Quilt House has become a mecca for quilt lovers from around the world. The main galleries on the second floor are accessed by a wide stepped ramp following the curve of the glass façade. As one ascends, a view of the street-level entry and gift shop and the Dillow Conservation Work Room (where staff and volunteers can be seen examining items in the collection) gives way to the upper level’s reception hall. A graphic frieze of thumbnail images of quilts in the collection gradually comes into view over the galleries’ entryway. Architect Robert A. M. Stern sought a sense “of slowing down from the pace of the workaday.” This conceptualized layout and the galleries’ protective low lighting contribute to a sense of quiet attention to the quilts on display.
The Coryell, Center, and Gottsch Galleries comprise an open, flexible space for displays and ideas to flow, connect, inform, and inspire. These three side-by-side galleries converge onto a passageway leading to the expansive new West Gallery, which opened in June 2015 thanks to a very generous gift from the R obert and Ardis James Foundation. The Jameses gave the lead donation for Quilt House, which opened in 2008, and have donated more than 1,000 quilts from their personal collection. The new gallery, measuring 13,200 square feet, also includes a digital gallery and additional storage space. “This exciting new gallery, with its professional lighting, high ceilings, and open vistas balanced by more intimate enclaves, equals any space that I know of in New York City exhibiting textiles,” says Dr. Sandra Sider, Curator, Texas Quilt Museum, and a resident of New York since 1979. The West Gallery is perfect for showing Luke Haynes’ installation of fifty 90-inch-square contemporary Log Cabin quilts. Inspired by a Donald Judd installation, 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, SAQA Art Quilt Collector | 3
