Easy

Good museum exhibitions look easy, but they are not. The process can take several years, but we had less than a year to prepare the "Collecting New York Beauty Quilts" exhibition, scheduled to open on July 31st at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.

In reality, it all started almost 25 years ago when I bought my first quilt from Shelly Zegart, but this exhibition was first conceived after the feature article by Mary Kate Karr-Petras in Quilters Newsletter Magazine last year. Nancy Bavor, a board member of the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (SJMQT), brought the magazine to Deborah Corsini, curator at SJMQT. Shortly after that, I was invited to exhibit. Most of the time, the exhibitions are planned farther in advance, but they just happened to be looking for an exhibition of traditional quilts, and I was in the right place at the right time, able to deliver the goods.

Since then, there's been a whirlwind of activity with these quilts. I documented and photographed them, had them appraised, and had sleeves sewn on the backs. Each one was tagged, an inventory list was made, copy was written for the museum display tags, and a 40-page, self-published catalogue was produced.

The quilts were boxed up and are now en route! On one hand, I'm relieved to get them out the door. On the other hand, I will be eager to hear that they've arrived safely. When the quilts are mounted for display and visitors come to see the exhibition, I hope they'll think we made it look easy.