Virginia Quilt Museum opens 2016 season on Feb. 2

The Virginia Quilt Museum opens its 2016 Season on Feb. 2 featuring quilts as story-tellers.

EXHIBIT PHASE I

• “Three Decades of a Quilting Friendship” by Constance Norton and Violet Cavazos
  These two well-known quiltmakers and fabric designers from northern Virginia curate a grouping of quilts they have designed together over the past 30 years.  Inspired in classes taught by art quilt pioneers Nancy Crow, Michael James, and others, Norton and Cavazos’s quilts display contemporary and traditional art quilt styles and techniques.     (Showing through May 7.)

• “Quilt Study of Civil War Era Quilts” by the American Quilt Study Group
  Responding to the 2014 theme of the American Civil War, quiltmakers created quilts copied from, or inspired by, existing Civil War quilts.  All inspiration quilts were required to be identifiable as a ‘Civil War Quilt’ defined as a quilt made between the years 1850-1865.  Read more about the Civil War Quilts study. www.americanquiltstudygroup.org/qscwstudy01.asp. (Showing through mid-March.)

• “Treasures From the Vault: Mary Spitzer Etter Collection”
  A graduate of James Madison University and a local school teacher in Harrisonburg for four decades, Mary Spitzer Etter was not only a quiltmaker but an inspiration to countless young students.  Come view some of her quilts from the Virginia Quilt Museum’s collection.  Check out her papers housed in JMU’s Special Collections Dept.  www.lib.jmu.edu/special/manuscripts/EtterM.aspx. (Showing through May 7.)

UPCOMING EXHIBITS

Exhibit Phase II (May 17 – Sept. 10) will feature quilts in a patriotic theme.  Included in this grouping will be American Pride:  Quilts from the Pat and Arlan Christ Collection, from Pennsylvania’s “Dutch” heritage; Along the Spice Route, contemporary wall quilts celebrating spices, whose quest resulted in the discovery of America; and A National Park Service Centennial Celebration!

Exhibit Phase III (Sept. 20 – Dec. 17) will feature a quilt potpourri.  Included in this grouping will be a collection of Polly Mello’s “funerary” or mourning quilts, Treasures from the Vault, and A Potpourri of Quilts:  Floyd County, Virginia Quilt Guild.

OPENING DAY:  Come help us celebrate the opening of our 2016 Season on Groundhog Day, Tuesday, February 2^nd.  Anyone who can tell us where a special quilt is sighted in the movie “Groundhog Day” will receive a VQM pen or magnet.  If you can tell us what special pattern is on that quilt, a free museum guest pass is yours!  In addition, our youngest visitors can make a groundhog quilt block at the Children’s Quilt Corner and have their picture taken next to a favorite quilt!

Also on Opening Day, the museum’s new “conservation lab” will be unveiled.  Visitors are encouraged to bring in a quilt from their own collection for an abbreviated “Talk About Quilts” with our curator in the lab.  Samples of the fibers most frequently used in quilts, along with a table and microscope for examining visitors’ quilts, are some of the analysis tools available.  The lab will afford an opportunity to learn about the proper care of antique quilts at home and the acquisition and care of quilts in the museum.

NEWS:  The Virginia Quilt Museum is excited this year to not only establish a conservation lab, but also to inaugurate the Christopher Columbus Grandle Lecture Series.  In the early 1900s, Mr. Grandle built the fireplace mantles and cherubs found in the museum’s home, The Warren-Sipe House!  This lecture series begins Saturday, March 12^th at 1:30 when Kyra Hicks – quilter, quilt historian, and author – presents “Franklin Roosevelt’s Postage Stamp Quilt:  The Story of Estella Weaver Nukes’ Presidential Gift”.  Ms. Hicks is a believer in our exhibit’s theme:  quilts as story-tellers!  She will lecture at St. Stephen’s Church and afterwards sign books at the museum.  The Lecture Series continues through the year, with

• Pat and Arlan Christ, “American Pride: Quilts from the Christ Collection” June 11^th
• Deborah Smith, “National Park Service Centennial” July 30^th
• Polly Mello, “Mourning and Meaning Through Cloth” October 21^st

NOTES:  The Virginia Quilt Museum opens its 2016 Season February 2^nd.  Hours are 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Tuesday through Saturday.  Phone 540-433-3818.  Follow Facebook and the website for updates and details on special events through the year:  www.vaquiltmuseum.org.  www.facebook.com/VAQuiltMuseum/

The Virginia Quilt Museum was founded in 1995 and exists to celebrate and nurture quilting in Virginia.  The Museum is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization funded solely through private donations, memberships, and revenue from admissions and museum shop sales. The Virginia Quilt Museum receives no federal or state funding.