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Historical Amish Quilt Collection opens Friday in Grand Junction

Camille Silverman
Special to the Free Press
Head to the Art Center in Grand Junction to see this center diamond quilt, 34 inches by 34 inches, circa 1910, from Lancaster County, Pa.
Submitted photo |

The Henry and Angela Hite Amish Quilt Collection will open on Friday, Dec. 5, at The Western Colorado Center for the Arts. The Hite collection of 23 quilts will host an opening reception from 6:30-9 p.m. on Friday. Admission to the reception is free, also including shows by Terry Shepherd Clay and “Celebrating Twenty Years with the Outsiders.”

The collection spans the 1880s to the 1980s. This exhibition showcases 100 years of quilt making from Tennessee, Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio.

Quilting is not only important to those in the fiber arts community, but it also became very important to painters exploring reductive methods of abstraction. Prominent artists like quilter Anni Albers and painter Josef Albers worked side-by-side. And from these collaborations and relationships, hard-edge abstraction painting began being explored by artists like Sol LeWitt and Frank Stella.



The value shifts are so slight between colors in some of these quilts that, if the viewer squints, the colors become one and virtually indistinguishable. In this fast-paced world where information is collaged all over our computer screens, newspapers and television sets, this simplification can be alien but refreshing.

The Shepherd Clay Exhibit will be sharing the exhibition spaces with the Amish quilts. Terry Shepherd has headed The Western Colorado Center for the Arts’ ceramics department for over 30 years where he continues to master and experiment with the tools of the trade: A potter’s wheel, hand-building techniques, glazes and the kiln.



Paintings of “The Outsiders” will also be exhibited at this reception. This group of five women have been painting and exhibiting together for over 20 years. They met in a life-drawing class at the center. Former director Dave Davis gave them the opportunity to exhibit and they have been working, traveling and painting together ever since.

The Western Colorado Center for the Art’s regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays are free to non-members through a grant from Home Loan and Allied Insurance. The center has a regular admission price of $3. It is located at 1803 N. Seventh St., in Grand Junction. For more information on programming, go to http://www.gjartcenter.org. All exhibits run through December and January.


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