Friendship Plume
Marie Hart Mattison
Minneapolis, Minnesota, dated 1976
Cotton blend; hand appliquéd and quilted
Gift of Marie Hart Mattison
IQM 2013.015.0001.01

In 1973, when Marie Mattison was in her mid-30s, her mother suggested they make a quilt together. They had often cooperated on sewing home-decor projects, so this, according to Mattison, “...was just the next project to work on.” After this, Mattison saw Friendship Plume, a Mountain Mist quilt design, in a magazine and ordered the pattern. The quilt became the centerpiece of her redecorated master bedroom, complete with coordinating curtains, green plaid wallpaper, and green shag carpeting. Mattison and her mother reflect the do-it-yourself decorating trend that paralleled shelter magazine editors who featured quilts in professional interior designs.

Peony Variation
Mary Campbell Ghormley
Lincoln, Nebraska, dated 1992
Cotton; hand pieced, appliquéd, and quilted
Mary and Roger Ghormley Collection 
IQM 2007.031.0002

Just as American women have done for two centuries, Mary Ghormley (1919-2015) displayed her quilts in agricultural fairs. Peony Variation earned first prize at the 1992 Nebraska State Fair. 

In the early 1970s, Ghormley significantly influenced display, documentation, and study of quilts in Nebraska. As interest in DIY quiltmaking grew, she taught quilting and co-founded the Lincoln Quilters Guild (LQG) in 1973. She saw the Holstein and van der Hoof Collection at the University of Iowa’s art museum and then initiated a guild-sponsored exhibition of Nebraska quilts at the University of Nebraska’s Sheldon Art Gallery in 1974. In addition, Ghormley was instrumental in LQG’s organization of a national quilt symposium in 1977 and the Nebraska Quilt Documentation Project a decade later.

Tumbling Blocks
L. Miller
Wayne County, Ohio, circa 1975
Cotton; machine pieced, hand quilted
Ardis and Robert James Collection
IQM 1997.007.0512

Classic Amish quilts made with fine woolens in deeply saturated colors were the quintessential quilt analog to the work of acclaimed mid-twentieth-century modernist Abstract painters such as Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Because of the similarity, demand for Amish quilts drove prices quickly upwards. Ohio dealers Susan and George Delagrange offered an alternative: Susan designed quilts inspired by classic Amish quilts, and their company, Amish Design, hired Amish women to make them. Though sold as new quilts, these pieces have been easily mistaken for older classics. 

Log Cabin variation
RSVP Club
Greene County, Alabama, circa 1987
Cotton blend; hand pieced and quilted
Robert and Helen Cargo Collection
IQM 2000.004.0112
Members of the Greene County, Alabama Retired Senior Volunteer Corps (RSVP) chapter sold this quilt to Alabama folk art dealer Robert Cargo. These RSVP members leveraged a collector’s interest in an art form with a long history in their predominantly Black community to benefit their neighbors. Similarly, the Freedom Quilting Bee, a cooperative of Black Women founded in 1966 in nearby Wilcox County, sold quilts by mail order to benefit impoverished Black residents who experienced eviction and harassment by white landowners after registering to vote under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Cup of Gold
Marion Ekstrom Wright 
Naval Air Station, Barbers Point, Hawaii, dated 1972
Cotton; hand appliquéd and quilted
Gift of quiltmaker, Marion Ekstrom Wright
IQM 2015.055.0001

Cup of Gold is one of nearly 5000 quilts documented by the Nebraska Quilt Project between 1987 and 1989, but its origins are far from the Cornhusker state. Marion Wright made the quilt near Ewa Beach, Oahu, Hawaii where her husband, a naval officer, was stationed at Barber’s Point Naval Air Station. As did many women at this time without quilting experience, she found a teacher. Mealii Kalama, a native of the island, taught Wright to make a traditional Hawaiian-style appliqué quilt with echo quilting. Wright made two quilts in this style.

Album, The Great Quilt 
Marilynn Gelfman Karp and friends
New York, New York, dated 1974
Cotton; hand appliquéd, tied
Gift of Marilynn and Ivan Karp
IQM 2008.005.0001

In 1973, Marilynn Gelfman Karp, an artist and designer, planned a personal way to commemorate the United States 1976 Bicentennial. Drawing from quilts’ higher profile in the art world and their historical place in women’s lives, she organized a “contemporary art friendship quilt.” Karp invited her and her husband Ivan Karp’s friends in the New York art scene to make fabric blocks that included their names and something symbolic of themselves. Many contributors were friends known through Ivan Karp’s OK Harris Gallery, Works of Art, in SoHo, including Richard Artschwager, Ralph Goings, James Wines, and Alison Sky.