Shelly Zegart's love of American
quilts began in the mid-1970s when she was looking for quilts to use as art in
her new home. Since then, she has been a passionate collector, curator,
author and lecturer on both antique and contemporary quilts. She has helped
to build quilt collections in Kentucky and around
the world.
This
exhibition features about two dozen quilts from her personal collection
that are of particular significance to her because of their relationships to
family, particular artists, specific exhibitions and significant local
collections.
The exhibition also
highlight her contributions in the wider quilt world. Among her most significant
contributions came in 1993 when she was a founder of The Alliance for American
Quilts. She coordinated the efforts of its university and museum partners to
preserve and share the nation s quilt heritage through projects such as Quilt
Treasures and Quilters S.O.S. - Save Our Stories and The Quilt Index, a
searchable database of images and records that can help to inspire and inform
the work of quiltmakers, aficionados and scholars now and for the
future.
Zegart, a
zealous advocate for quilt scholarship, was co-founder and the driving force
behind the Kentucky Quilt Project, an effort initiated in 1980 to survey the
state's quilts. The first project of its kind, it set the standard for all the
state, regional, and national quilt projects that followed. The seeds
planted by the Kentucky Quilt Project have flourished not only nationally
but also internationally.
She has
curated many exhibits here and abroad, most recently an exhibition of antique
Log Cabin pattern quilts for the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2008
and antique Schoolhouse pattern quilts for the Tokyo festival in
2005. In 2005 Zegart curated the
exhibition Three Faces of Gee s Bend for
the three mid-town Manhattan lobby
galleries of the Durst Organization. Her first Durst project was the 2001
exhibit and catalog A Heritage of Genius: American Master Quilts Past and
Present. Zegart traveled to
Rouen, France,
in 2003 for Mosaic Textiles: In Search of the Hexagon, an international
comparative exhibition representing nine countries, for which she served as
consultant and wrote part of the catalog.
She was a
curator for the 100 Best Quilts of the Twentieth Century exhibition and
publication produced by Primedia in 2000.
Three antique quilts from Zegart s collection were among those selected.
In 1999 she curated Kentucky Quilts:
Roots and Wings, a traveling exhibition and catalogue organized by the
Kentucky Folk Art Center at Morehead University
that examined the Kentucky quilt
mystique past and present.
Her first
international project was a 1987 exhibit of Kentucky quilts for
the Women s Committee of the National Trust of
Australia.
Opening Reception Thursday September 4, 5 7:30
pm
