I have so many quilts that feel important for historical or artistic reasons. It has always been so important to me that these favorites be preserved in museum collections.
Two of my favorite curators to work with are Amelia Peck and Ulysses Grant Dietz. Amelia is currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who is the Marica F. Vilcek Curator of American Decorative Arts and Manager of the Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art. Ulysses is currently the Chief Curator and Curator of Decorative Arts, Newark Museum. (More about this soon.) Both of them wrote beautiful essays for Unconventional & Unexpected.
Amelia's dedication to women as makers makes me especially excited to have my crib quilt created by Nellie Block in the Metropolitan Museum's collection. She put together a beautiful short talk on the subject of "Anonymous" in American art. Listen here.
I had done a fair amount of genealogy and census research on Nellie Block, her parents, and her husband. Amelia reported to me that the Museum has completed more research on Nellie and quilts being made as therapy in Illinois state institutions. She created this quilt at sage 30 while a resident at the Illinois Southern Hospital for the Insane. This crib quilt in a "crazy style" is typical of the "mourning prints" of the 1900-20s. You can see Nellie signed the quilt herself in 1905 on this pocket.
I am thrilled to have Nellie's quilt now at the Met and for others to be able to view and appreciate its fascinating story.
