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Profile in "Your Austin Lifestyle" Magazine

My profile of Dr. Ann Daly is published in the July issue of Your Austin Lifestyle magazine. Photo by Tami Bone.
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Quilt National at the Dairy Barn, Athens, Ohio

The Dairy Barn is an actual dairy cow barn built in 1914 that served the Athens State School. It has been renovated to serve as an art exhibit space.

I’ve wanted to go to Quilt National for years now. It’s probably the premier art quilt show, held every two years.

As you enter, the stunning “Memorial Day” greets you. The artist made a small American flag for each one of our 4083 troops who has died in Iraq (as of May 26, 2008). It is an enormous piece, even though each flag is tiny. That really puts into perspective how many 4000+ people are.

Many of the art quilts were basically paintings on fabric, some were sculptural, and some had social or political points of view. My favorites were intricately hand-embellished. It’s impossible to see the detail in a photo, but here is an example by Susan Krueger of the many processes she used in her quilt:

“Cotton, fabric paint; batiked, discharged, image transferred, appliquéd, embroidered, hand and machine quilted.”

And the stories were almost as fascinating as the quilts themselves, for example:

“…made up of many layers of fabric with separate but related compositions on each piece. After I hand stitch the layers together, I begin to cut into them. As I work toward revealing different parts of the layers, I discover that they are a lot like my own layers. It is difficult to cut into some parts, so I leave them be. I guess they are not yet ready to be revealed.”

Quilts are not the only thing exhibited at the Dairy Barn. A contemporary wood sculpture show will begin in September. Quilt National occurs in odd-number years and Bead International in even-number years. If you are ever within a couple-hour drive of Athens, Ohio, I highly recommend you visit this place. www.dairybarn.org