Infinite Variety, Indeed!

Today I went to the American Folk Art Museum's show "Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts"  at the Park Avenue Armory.  The quilts are part of a collection of over 1000 quilts belonging to Joanna S. Rose and were on  view for free for 6 days in celebration of Mrs. Rose's 80th birthday.  What a way to celebrate!
Although there was no catalog or audio tour, visitors could borrow iPads that had pictures of every quilt so you could appreciate the design and the workmanship even if the actual quilt were 15 feet above your head!  (There is a book coming.)
The Armory wasn't too crowded, so you could really take your time to enjoy the entire exhibit.  I'm sure most of the visitors were quilters or friends of quilters, but I did have a trio of ladies ask me how the quilts were made, so there were "laymen," too.

This is what you saw when you walked into the room:

The quilts were suspended from the ceiling and looked almost weightless.  They were arranged in circular "pavillions" three rows high; each pavillion was numbered so that you could locate the quilts on the iPad.  Here's one of the pavillions:

There were also rows of quilts hung across the back wall of the armory:

And here are some quilts that I thought were especially interesting/beautiful/intricate:

As you can see, there truly was "infinite variety."  I went with two friends from my quilt guild, and it was great to have three different perspectives and preferences.

Many bloggers have posted a video of the exhibit.  Here's the link from Tonya of Lazy Gal Quilting:

http://lazygalquilting.blogspot.com/2011/03/red-and-white-quilts.html

And, if you want even more, there's a Flickr pool of photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1587925@N24/pool/

I'm so glad I had the opportunity to see these wonderful quilts.  If you live anywhere near NYC, try to go see them in person.  But hurry; the show ends Wednesday!