Bonham, Texas -- The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History is pleased to announce the quilt exhibit Citizen Stitching: Political Quilts in the Winedale Quilt Collection. The exhibit will be on display from July 15 through July 27, 2024, at the Sam Rayburn Museum, a division of the Briscoe Center in Bonham, Texas.
Politics have historically inspired quilters to create works dedicated to a party, political, and ideological figures. This exhibition displays examples, drawn from the Winedale Quilt Collection, of how some quilters have expressed political beliefs and support for candidates with both original and well-known patterns throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Selected quilts include homages or gifts to charismatic Texans such as W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, John Nance Garner, and Ann Richards.
The exhibit coincides with the 2024 Bonham Quilt Hop on Friday, July 26, and Saturday, July 27, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The event features hundreds of quilts across nine locations, as well as craft and quilt vendors, demonstrations, workshops, and Fat Quarter bingo. For more information on the Bonham Quilt Hop, contact the Bonham Visitors’ Center at 903-583-9830 or email info@visitbonham.com.
The Winedale Quilt Collection is a scholarly resource that supports the study of quilts and their history. Its mission is to collect, preserve, and provide access to American quilts and documenting the role of quilts in American culture. The quilts currently on display joined the collection as individual donations or as collections assembled by Joyce Gross, Sherry Cook, and Katherine Adams.
For more information on Citizen Stitching, please call the Sam Rayburn Museum at 903-583-2455 or email rayburn@austin.utexas.edu.