TAUNY - News

TAUNY invites the community to the opening reception for the organization’s next major exhibition, “St. Lawrence County Barn Quilts,” on Saturday, February 29th from 1:00-3:00 pm at The TAUNY Center in Canton, NY. This exhibition features the varied and vibrant barn quilts and related projects as well as the people, projects, and stories that help make up the growing barn quilt movement in St. Lawrence County.

Opening at the same time will be the “Folkstore Artist Spotlight: Barn Quilts and Beyond,” in which barn quilts and an array of related works will be available for sale throughout the time the exhibition is up.

Over the past several years, hundreds of these colorful painted squares inspired by traditional quilt patterns have popped up on barns, homes, town halls, boat houses, and other creative locations around St. Lawrence County and beyond. Ranging dramatically in size, patterns, and imagery, they are the creations of local artists and community members taking part in a grassroots arts and economic development movement. For many, the barn quilts they make or display say something about their personal experience. Making barn quilts is often a way to celebrate local heritage, identity, and community, to nurture local pride, and to encourage investment in beautifying and maintaining local properties. They are also often part of organized community efforts to draw tourism to small towns around the region. There are two extensive, well-established Barn Quilt Trails already in St. Lawrence County in Colton and Hammond, with another underway in Wanakena. Whether on their own or as part of a community effort, people around the county and beyond are making more every day. The “St. Lawrence County Barn Quilts” exhibition showcases not only an array of remarkable barn quilts and related materials, but the story of this local grassroots arts and economic development movement and the people who have inspired and been inspired by it.

The exhibition was curated by Camilla Ammirati, TAUNY’s Director of Research and Programs, and Ruth McWilliams, a leader in the barn quilt movement. It includes dozens of barn quilts from throughout St. Lawrence County; selected materials sharing the stories of the local barn quilt movement and trails; and special projects inspired by that movement, including the Towns of St. Lawrence County Barn Quilt Mural and Quilt, the 4’x4’ Barn-Quilt-Inspired New Works by a range of contemporary and traditional artists, and information about the online map for people in and around St. Lawrence County to post their own barn quilts and stories on. The exhibition builds on the 2019 “Barn Quilt Tourism Project,” in which TAUNY worked with community partners to celebrate and encourage barn quilt activity in St. Lawrence County and beyond.

“It’s been a delight in recent years to see so many barn quilts going up around the county” says TAUNY Director of Research and Programs and exhibition curator Camilla Ammirati, “but it’s more wonderful still to learn more about what barn quilts mean to those who make them, and to see the incredibly creative ways people use them to riff on other traditional arts and activities, and as a launching point for sharing their own stories through the poetry of pattern, shape, and color.”

Learn more about the area’s existing Barn Quilt Trails through the St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce at www.northcountryguide.com/pages/barn-quilt-trails. Learn more about the 2019 “Barn Quilt Tourism Project” and partners at http://tauny.org/pages/219/4/2019-barn-quilt-tourism-project. Find online listings of barn quilts throughout the county—and how to enter your own listing—on the St. Lawrence County Barn Quilt Map at https://slcartscouncil.org/barn-quilt-trail/. The “St. Lawrence County Barn Quilts” exhibit and 2019 Barn Quilt Tourism Project have been made possible by a Regional Economic Development Council Grant through the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Pictured here: barn quilt by Master Gardener volunteers on display at the Cornell Cooperative Extension St. Lawrence County.

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