The Revived Art of Quilting Brings a Kentucky Ghost Town Back to Life
What Italy provides for people who love food is what Paducah does for quilting. A small Kentucky town on the Ohio River halfway between St. Louis and Nashville, Tenn., Paducah has become one of the prime destinations for quilt tourism, 21st-century style.
In late April every year, the American Quilter's Society draws 35,000 quilt makers and quilt lovers to Paducah for one of the biggest quilt shows in the country. The niche craft has been used as an economic engine to revive this once-declining town. The story of Paducah also helps demonstrate why quilting is now a $3.3 billion industry, with an estimated 27 million enthusiasts.
When I first came here in 2002 to research a book about the modern quilt world, I was stunned by the enormity and sophistication of the AQS show. Similar to this year, there were about 400 contest quilts on display in the convention center, more than 250 vendors selling quilt supplies, 150 classes and loads of lectures. The intricate quilts ranged from traditional appliqué and patchwork block patterns to striking original designs such as portraits and painterly abstracts. The cash prizes given to the winning quilters totaled $100,000.
This is the handiwork of Bill and Meredith Schroeder, who decided to turn Paducah into "Quilt City USA," a name they trademarked after creating the American Quilter's Society and staging the first show in 1985. Along with publishing a quilting magazine and how-to books, they founded and funded a $2.2 million quilt museum in 1991, building it just steps from the convention center. The museum's year-round quilting exhibits and classes help make Paducah more than a seasonal stopping place.
Writer Meg Cox explains how Paducah has used the arts to propel its economy and why it has earned the distinction Quilt City, USA.
Shrewdly, the Schroeders stipulated that the annual show's top prize-winners would get a hefty cash prize only if they gave their quilt to the museum. Now the museum is among a select group "that not only have strong and expanding collections of quilts, but are active forces in making these collections accessible for research and educational use," says quilt historian Marsha MacDowell, curator of the Michigan State University Museum in East Lansing, home of the Great Lakes Quilt Center.
During the show, quilts decorate almost every shop window in town -- for the first time this year some of the contest quilts will be for sale at the show -- and an annual exhibit of antique quilts fills the Civic Center. Locals rent out rooms to visitors. When the show ends each day, quilters crowd into Market House Square, the heart of the restored downtown. The most-popular eateries are those with the television tuned to the Quilt Channel: During this week, Channel 17 on local cable runs programming and interviews about the quilt show every day until midnight.
Gerry Montgomery, who was mayor 20 years ago, says the downtown died after a big shopping mall opened out of town in the early 1980s. But after the quilt show began, vendors starting opening in the vacant buildings in the center of town. "Locals and out-of-towners saw quilters walking down the street with shopping bags and soon had ideas on how to bring a ghost town back to life," she says.
As quilters boosted the local economy, the town's planners started an Artist Relocation Project in 2000, practically giving away derelict downtown buildings to artists and crafters willing to turn them into living spaces, studios and galleries. There are now 50 artists living and working in the Lowertown arts district, and 18 art galleries. Tourist dollars flowing into Paducah grew to $276 million in 2006 from $66 million in 1991, the year the quilt museum opened.
Not everything is perfect in this quiltopia. In recent years, the AQS says that the Executive Inn, the hotel next to the convention center, had deteriorated so much that the society threatened to pack up its quilt show and leave town. (Tourism locals say that some upgrades have since been made to the hotel. Bhupindar Singh, owner of the Executive Inn, declined to comment.)
Now, the city leaders are negotiating deals for developers to build a bigger hotel and convention center as part of a $50 million plan to develop Paducah's riverfront.
Paducah's success in quilt tourism has spawned a rise in big quilt shows across the country. In 2000, the AQS added a summer show in Nashville, and in October it will inaugurate an annual fall show in Des Moines, Iowa. Even bigger than the Paducah show is the International Quilt Festival, which takes place every fall in Houston.
The town's rebirth dovetails with a rising national interest in quilting. The comeback was helped, in part, by the 1976 Bicentennial, when quilts were made to mark the celebration. More recently, the vivid and original patterns of the Gee's Bend quilters of Alabama have toured the country's top art museums. Now, serious quilters can take classes online, search 1,000 quilt shops for the quilting fabric they need and blog about their latest quilt.
Bus trips to see quilting in Amish country are still plentiful, but quilt travel has also gone global and upscale. One tour operator, Sew Many Places, offers quilt-themed cruises and trips to China, Africa, Ireland and Australia.
When my mother taught me to quilt 20 years ago, it was the tail end of the post-Bicentennial nostalgia phase, and it was seen as cheating to use sewing machines at all. In 1989, when a machine-quilted piece by Caryl Bryer Fallert won the top prize at Paducah, it was a near-scandal. Many quilters were aghast, but others thought Ms. Fallert helped prove that quilting by machine wasn't just a valid design option but also a timely one. (Now, only about a third of the contest quilts in the Paducah show are hand-quilted.)
At the 2002 show, it wasn't just the craftsmanship of the quilts that amazed me, but also what the vendors were selling. Computerized sewing machines made by Bernina, Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff costing more than $4,000 offered hundreds of different stitches and let quilters embroider any design they could download.
A major fixture at the show each year is Eleanor Burns. She might look like Betty Crocker's sister, but she's the Martha Stewart of quilting, with a multimedia business called Quilt in a Day. Ms. Burns, based in California, has more than 70 books in print and has taped "Quilt in a Day," her how-to show on PBS, since 1990.
She weds old patterns to cutting-edge techniques, milking nostalgia with patterns called Romance Rose and Grandmother's Garden, while teaching quilters to use speed-cutting tools and shortcuts for piecing on the latest sewing machines.
Ms. Burns erects an enormous tent at a Paducah park and puts on three shows a day for 700 people at a time. These shows are like infomercials for her books, patterns, DVDs and custom rulers, with a lot of audience participation. This year, she'll be dressed as Rosie the Riveter to promote a new book with quick versions of quilt patterns popular in the 1940s.
Her down-home style isn't for everyone, but some fans will buy fabric scraps in plastic bags autographed by Ms. Burns.
There are many quilters who wouldn't be caught dead making a quilt pattern from yesteryear. For them, Ms. Fallert -- who took that top prize in 1989 -- is a mentor, an art quilter whose works hang in museums, and the only person ever to win the top prize in Paducah three times. A pioneer in using graphic-design software for quilts, this former stewardess also made a major commitment to Paducah, moving here a few years ago under the Artist Relocation Program.
Paducah gave her two city lots for $1, so Ms. Fallert built her dream studio and gallery in 2006, a big two-story brick building with white columns and ample porches. Visitors can stop by her gallery year-round to see examples of her vivid geometric quilts. Her shop sells fabrics, her patterns and keepsakes such as tote bags and trivets. Classes in computer design for quilts, fabric dyeing and other techniques are offered much of the year, and rooms are rented above her shop for $70 a night -- she's already booked for this year's show.
Ms. Cox, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is the author of the new book "The Quilter's Catalog: A Comprehensive Resource Guide."
By Meg Cox: special to the Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal; April 12, 2008
