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Professional Involvement

As a quilt historian, I work at the leading edge to take the awareness of quilts as visual records of women's history beyond the confines of the traditional quilting world to the broader expanse of public education.

Since 1981, I have studied and traveled extensively visiting national museums, historical areas, and resource people. During tenure on the American Quilt Study Group (AQSG) Board of Directors, I created and launched the Regional Coordinator Program designed to help area members become acquainted with one another and support the organization.

My research work on quilts of migration has won national recognition including an Award of Merit from the American Association of State and Local History and the Benjamin Franklin Award from the Publishers' Marketing Association.

My 1993 book Treasures in the Trunk: Quilts of the Oregon Trail, has reached new audiences for quilt and women's history. Materials from the text have been used in religious sermons, grade school reports, and graduate-level degree presentations.

Quilts and Women of the Mormon Migrations: Treasures of Transition was published in 1996. As a non-LDS scholar, I was granted access to study the quilts and life stories of women who migrated west to Zion from around the world between the years 1830-1900. From there, these women moved out to settle the Inter-mountain West and serve as missionaries in church colonies. This book has served as inspiration for numerous presentations, including a creative dance program in Flagstaff, Arizona.

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I have curated numerous exhibitions. Two, featuring contemporary and traditional quilts of current quiltmakers, traveled internationally under the sponsorship of Visual Arts Resources. The Oregon Trail Quilt Project exhibit “The Pattern of the Journey,” featuring my historical research, also won an AASLH Award of Merit.

In 1998, I created “The Tie That Binds” exhibition and symposium celebrating Methodism in America for the Portland First United Methodist Church's 150th Anniversary. In 2000, I curated a special exhibition on quilts as visual records of human experience for the 5th Women West Conference at the Washington State University.

I serve as guest curator for special exhibitions at the Museum of the Oregon Territory in Oregon City including “Quilts: Heirlooms from the Homefront,” and a collaboration with a traveling Smithsonian SITES photographic exhibition of historic gardens.

This curatorial work has led to opportunities to judge, evaluate and comment on both historic and contemporary quilts. I served as a judge for the premier Great Pacific Northwest Quilt Show.

I have lectured widely on various quilt-related topics over the last twenty years. Many diverse groups have hosted my lectures and workshops. These, especially tailored for the audience, have been held in sites from church parlors, barns, and shopping malls in the Pacific Northwest to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. I am currently an Oregon Council for the Humanities Chautauqua lecturer.

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My award-winning designed woolen quilts are in private collections worldwide. My workshop “The Hired Man's Quilt: A Personal Design Exploration” encourages quilters to create their own versions of this historically themed quilt.

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My on-going assignments include serving as the quilt consultant for educational programs at all levels, directing the Annual Columbia-Willamette Quilt Study Group Retreat, and conducting workshops for owner enhancement of quilts.

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Statement on
Involvement

Statement on
Themes

Statement on
Woolen Quilts

Recognition
and Awards

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