American Quilt Traditions Program

Leach Library to Host Program on American Quilt Traditions

On Thursday, January 14 at 7:00 p.m., the Leach Library will host a program on the history of American quilt traditions. This talk, given by Cheryl Savageau, will cover a variety of traditions including Amish and Native American, illustrating examples of each in slide images and quilt samples.

Cheryl Savageau is a textile artist who received her Master of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts. She is a founding member of the Oak and Stone Storytellers, as well as the author of the poetry collections Dirt Road Home and Mother/Land and the picture book Muskrat Will Be Swimming. She has received several fellowships and residencies in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Artist Foundation and the MacDowell Colony. Her quilts have been exhibited at the University of New Hampshire in a contemporary Native Artists’ exhibit and at the Abbe Museum’s Twisting Path exhibit in Bar Harbor, Maine.

In this program, Ms. Savageau will use slide images and quilt samples to exemplify an assortment of American quilt traditions, including Anglo, Amish, African American, and several Native American traditions. She will discuss the cultural context and historical meaning of the various quilting traditions, as well as the political, religious, and geographical influences and differing aesthetics they embody.

The event is being sponsored by the Friends of the Londonderry Leach Library. It is free and open to the public, and will be held in the library’s lower-level meeting room. Light refreshments will be served.