Zoar quilt exhibit a journey through American history
The perspective and realistic detail in this “Country School” quilt creates a scene one can almost step into.
About a dozen quilts are on display at the Bimeler Museum in Zoar, stitching together a portrait of American life through history and guiding visitors through some of the nation’s most important milestones.
On loan from the National Quilt Museum in Kentucky, the exhibit will remain in Zoar through October and is open Wednesday through Sunday during regular Zoar operating hours and festivals.
“It’s hard to describe how exquisite these quilts are,” said Tammi Shrum, site director for Historic Zoar Village. “They’re pieces of art; they really are.”
Included in the exhibit are antique and modern quilts made in Zoar. However, all of the quilts on loan were created between 1984 and 2011. Some are sewn by hand, some use machine stitching and others use a combination. Only a trained eye can tell which is which.
The realism in many of the quilts may cause visitors to wonder if they are really looking at quilts at all. Some look more like photographs, others like oil paintings. Shrum said most visitors have been blown away.
One quilt, made by Nancy Brown of California, resembles an antique photo and was inspired by a photo of her grandfather posing with other men who worked at the Mount Pleasant Gold Mine in the 1870s.
Another quilt demonstrating this type of textile realism is “Voice of Freedom,” based on the Lincoln Memorial. Quilter Barbara Temple used a fabric in a range of browns and grays for the statue and added yellow in various shades to give the effect of the sun shining through the memorial.
“I prefer making picture quilts,” Temple said. “The process of creating depth and dimension in fabric is like painting.”
The quilt, “9.11.2001,” created by Claire Gardner of Missouri, is notable for its symbolism, detail and depth of thought. According to the description accompanying the quilt, nine blue fabrics were used to represent the ninth month, with dark to light blue hues signifying rising to hope from darkness.
Gardner used 3,052 different fabrics to represent each person who died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on the four hijacked airplanes. Among other details, pearl buttons spell 2001 in Braille, a nod to what Gardner saw as America’s blindness to the possibility of a terrorist attack, while red and blue fabrics represent the firefighters and police officers who responded that day.
Chizuko Hana Hill of Texas, who made “Great American Elk,” pieced together 19,500 three-quarter-inch squares and displayed the quilt wrong-side-up to create a piece resembling a hooked rug or carpet.
Other quilts displayed in the exhibit include a hand-sewn replica of an original Zoar quilt on loan from the collection of Melanie Eddy and a quilt made by a group of Zoar volunteers in 2003 on loan from the collection of Steve Shonk.
An art-filled day
On Saturday, Aug. 5, Kathy Fernandez, former site director at Zoar, will give a presentation at 11 a.m. on Zoar textiles and clothing in the Zoar School House. Fernandez will present examples from a journal she uncovered listing all of the clothing, shoes, eyeglasses and personal items allocated to each Zoar family from the 1830s through the 1860s.
Afterward, visitors can stroll through the village and observe members of the Ohio Plein Air Society painting scenes from Zoar outdoors and then attend the free Ask a Curator quilt and clothing identification workshop in the Bimeler Museum from 1-3 p.m. The public is invited to have quilts or vintage clothing from their personal collections reviewed by Ohio History Connection curators Becky Odom and Marlise Schoeny.
Admission to both programs on Aug. 5 is free. A ticket to the quilt exhibit is $5. For more information on these and other Zoar events, call the Zoar Community Association at 330-874-3011, follow Historic Zoar Village on Facebook or visit www.historiczoarvillage.com.