GHF and Local Quilting Community Begin New Partnership with Exhibit "Old and New" at 1861 Custom House, Opening March 1

On March 1, from 6 to 9, the public is invited to the opening of "Old and New," an exhibit of 27 quilts that represents a new partnership between Galveston Historical Foundation and the local quilting community. The exhibit will be mounted at the 1861 U.S. Custom House, 502 20th Street, in the second-floor former courtroom. The public is invited to attend the opening, free of charge, in conjunction with ArtWalk.

For the past 10 years Galveston County Museum, a joint project of Galveston Historical Foundation (GHF) and the County Commissioners Court, has hosted the Island Quilter's Guild annual show "Quilts in Motion." The exhibit has always been popular, usually coinciding with GHF’s Dickens on The Strand Victorian festival and the holiday season. This year however, anticipated repairs at the County Museum prevented the show from being held there. Instead the courtroom at GHF's headquarters, the 1861 Custom House, was offered as a last-minute venue.

With majestic 16-foot ceilings and 40-foot-long walls, the Custom House courtroom proved to be the perfect kind of space to display large works and view them from a distance. Not only did the quilts visually enliven the empty room with color, pattern, and warmth--they improved the acoustics for meetings and functions as well. GHF staff welcomed the transformation of their headquarters meeting room into an exhibition space.

"It was a great opportunity for community members to visit our offices," says Julia Muncaster, director of membership. "They came to view the quilts and ended up staying longer than anticipated, taking the opportunity to tour our historic building, asking questions about what we do and how to join us in our preservation efforts."

The quilts on the courtroom wall were such a welcome addition, staff and board members starting asking why GHF couldn't exhibit quilts there all year-round.

Jul Kamen, a GHF member, volunteer, and quilt artist, seized the opportunity to turn this idea into a reality. She offered her services to GHF as volunteer curator with plans to mount a new quilt show in the courtroom every three months.

"Both GHF and the quilting community are excited about this new partnership," says Kamen. "Showcasing an age-old craft and following its evolution today seems to fit right in with what GHF is all about--preserving the past with an eye to the future."

The first exhibit of this new partnership, entitled "Old and New," will feature antique quilts from the cupboards, cedar chests, and attics of local quilters and GHF staff members. New quilts displaying contemporary techniques in composition and design by local quilters will be on display alongside the cherished antiques.

"The old quilts offer visitors the chance to take a step back in time when curtains became tablecloths, tablecloths became aprons and aprons became quilts," says Kamen. "No scrap of fabric went unused. A plain white sheet was cause for elaborate embroidery. Every quilt told a story."

"The new quilts represent an interesting shift," says Kamen. "Whereas quilting used to be a creative part of a woman’s primary work, now it often serves as a creative outlet from a woman’s hectic professional life." With the advent of modern art, quilts have also come to be appreciated for their artistic qualities of composition, color, texture, and design, says Kamen.

Sue M. Carlton, Ph.D., whose work "Stairway to Heaven" appears in the "Old and New" exhibit, is a tenured professor in the department of neuroscience and cell biology at UTMB, having just celebrated 25 years there in October, 2007. Her research laboratory studies pain pathways, and is funded by grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Department of Defense, private industry and foundations. With all of that responsibility, Carlton reports that quilting has been her relaxation since graduate school.

Quilting today is a flourishing craft, with much of its purpose still intact: to commemorate life events such as a wedding or the birth of a child. One prolific exhibitor of new quilts in the exhibit, Cassandra Bolen, regularly creates large quilts as gifts for family and friends as well as organizing the Community Service quilts for charity for the Island Quilter's Guild. It is traditional to give quilts as a comfort to those in need.

The antique quilts all have their stories as well.

Kamen tells how she and her two sisters used--and abused--many utilitarian quilts made by their Polish grandmother when they were children. Later, when as young women they were lamenting the loss of these tattered treasures--their mother pulled three of their grandmother’s pristine handmade quilts out of the cedar chest-untouched. Their mother had hidden and saved one of their grandmother’s quilts for each of them until they had reached an age where they could appreciate them. Kamen’s "Grandma’s Quilt" of appliqued hibiscus made in the 1930s is included in the exhibit.

Location: Second-Floor Courtroom, 1861 Custom House, 502 20th St. 9 to 5, Monday through Friday Opening: March 1, 2008 during ArtWalk, 6 to 9 p.m.